

H O 





0^ r-'^^^S: ^o v^ 






^^ 





^^-n^. 










'^, *•-<»' ^^^ 





v"^' 



^;/^<b- 













c .^^ 






"oV' 



>°-n*.. 




•^^o< 



,[5°* 




^oV" 




■"•^^o< 









^O 








V*^' 



'^<=>' 



».•' .0' "o. *'T..» ^ <^ 




% tt^ 0^ 

























4^ 




THE KING DF SPAIN AND THE gUEEN REGENT 

Spairty Frontispiece. 



SPAIN 



AND 



HER COLONIES 



COMPILED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES 



BY 



ARCHIBALD WILBERFORCE 



ILL USTRA TED 







NEW YORK 

PETER FENELON COLLIER & SON 

• MCM • 






"C/^ ^ /? j^^t- 



/ 



CX)NTENTS 



CHAFTBB I PMn 

SpAor IN ANTiQnnT • ••• 6 

CHAPTER II 
The Caliphate of Cobdova 14 

CHAPTER m 
Medieval Spain 96 

CHAPTER IV 
IIOOBISH Spadt 58 

CHAPTER V 
The iNQuisinoir. 80 

CHAPTER VI 
Tbbib Catholic Majesties. 96 

CHAPTER Vn 
United Spain 185 

CHAPTER Vni 
MoDEBN Spain 156 

CHAPTER IX 
Colonial Spain 190 

CHAPTER X 
Tbe Fall of an Empibb 918 

CHAPTER XI 
The Philippines. 914 

CHAPTER Xn 
^Ebb Hispano-Amebican Wab 818 

CHAPTER Xjn 

Spanish Abt, Litebatube, and Sport 838 

L Painting and Architecture 898 

U. Spanish Literature 84t 

IlL Sport 847 

Appendix. 856 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



SPAIN 

F^ontispiece-^lhR King of Spain and the Qaeen Regeat • • • ^ v 

View of Cadiz .•••••s 

Alicanti ..... .•••••«« 

War Ministry Department . «••••••« 



HISTORY OF SPAIN 



CHAPTER I 

SPAIN IN ANTIQUITY 

THE FIRST LAWS AND THE FIRST INVADERS — GREEKS, 
PHCENICIANS, ROMANS AND GOTHS 

HiSPANiA was the name by which the Romans called 
the peninsula which is made up of Spain and Portugal. 
The origin of the name is disputed. To the Greeks the 
country was known as Hesperia — the Land of the Setting 
Sun. According to Mariana,* Spain is called after its 
founder, Hispanus, a son or grandson of Hercules. But, 
for reasons hereinafter related, better authorities derive it 
from the Phoenician Span. 

There is a legend which Mariana recites, to the effect 
that the primal laws of Spain were written in verse, and 
framed six thousand years before the beginning of Time. 
To medieval makers of chronicles, Tubal, fifth son of 
Japhet, was the first to set foot on its shore. But ear- 
lier historians, ignorant of Noah's descendant, and, it may 
be, better informed, hold that after the episodes connected 
with the Golden Fleece, the Argonauts, guided by Her- 



* "Historia general de Esp^fa," by Juan de Mariana. 
9 vols., Valencia, 1783-96. 

(5) 



€ HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

oules, sailed the seas and loitered a while in Spain, where 
they were joined by refugees escaping from the totter and 
fall of Troy. Black was their national color. It has been 
retained in the mantillas of to-day. After the Greek r.d- 
venturers came the Phoenicians. The latter, a peaceful 
people, born traders, as are all of Semitic origin, founded 
a colony at Gaddir (Cadiz). In a remoter era they had 
established themselves at Canaan, where they built Bylos, 
Sidon and Tyre. From Tyre emigrants moved to Africa. 
Their headquarters was Kartha-Hadath, literally New- 
town, that Carthage in whose ruins Marius was to weep. 
The Phoenicians, as has been noted, were a peaceful peo- 
ple. Under a burning sun their younger brothers devel- 
oped into tigers. They had the storm for ally. They 
ravaged the coast like whirlwinds. They took Sicily, then 
Sardinia. Presently there was a quarrel at Gaddir. It 
was only natural that the Phoenicians should ask aid of 
their relatives. The Carthaginians responded, and, find- 
ing the country to their taste, took possession of it on their 
own account. To the Romans, with whom already they 
had crossed swords, they said nothing of this new posses- 
sion. It seemed wiser to leave it unmentioned than to 
guard it with protecting, yet disclosive, treaties. More 
than once they scuttled their triremes — suspicious sails 
were following them to its shore. From this vigilance 
the name of Spain is derived. In Punic, Span signifies 
hidden. 

The hiding of Spain was possible when the Romans 
were still in the nursery. But when the Romans grew 
up, when they had conquered Greece, and all of Italy was 
theirs, their enterprises developed. Up to this time th<>^ 



SPAIN IN ANTIQUITY. 7 

two nations had been almost allies. At once they were 
open rivals. It was a question between them as to whom 
the world should belong. 

The arguments on this subject, known as the Punic 
Wars, were three in number. The first resulted in a loss 
of Sicily and Sardinia. In the second, Spain went. In 
the third, Carthage was razed to the ground. 

It was with the conquest of Sagentimi — a. conquest not 
achieved until the surviving inhabitants of that beleaguered 
city had committed suicide — ^that annexation began. Then, 
slowly, at one time advancing, at another retreating, now 
defeated, now defeating, the Romans promenaded their 
eagles down the coast. Scipio came and watched the self- 
destruction of the Numantians, as Hannibal had watched 
the Sagentums fall. Pompey, boasting that he had made 
the Republic mistress of a thousand towns, came too; and 
after him Caesar, who, long before, as simple quaestor, had 
wept at Cadiz because of Alexander, who at his age had 
conquered the world — Caesar, his face blanched with tire- 
less debauches, came back and gave the land its coup de 
grace. In this fashion, with an unhealed wound in every 
province, Spain crawled down to Augustus's feet. A toga 
was thrown over her. When it was withdrawn the wounds 
had healed. She was a Roman province, the most flourish- 
ing, perhaps, and surely the most fair. 

The fusion of the two peoples was immediate. The 
native soldiery were sent off to bleed in the four comers 
of the globe, to that Ultima Thule where the Britons lived 
and which it took years to reach, or nearer home in Gaul, 
or else far to the north among the Teuton States; and, in 
the absence of an element which might have turned ugly, 



8 BJ8TORY OF SPAIN. 

the Romans found it easy work to open school. They had 
always been partial to Greek learning, and they inculcated 
H on the slightest pretext. They imported their borrowed 
Pantheon, their local Hercules, all the metamorphosed and 
irritable gods, and with becoming liberality added to them 
those divinities whom their adopted children most revered. 
It was in this way that the fusion of the two races came 
about. When Augustus assumed the purple, throughout 
the entire peninsula Latin was generally in use. It was 
not of the purest, to be sure. It had been beaten in with 
OiQ sword, the accent was rough and the construction 
bristled with barbarisms; but still it was Latin, and needed 
only a generation of sandpaper to become polished and re- 
fined. But perhaps the least recognized factor in the fusion 
ci the two peoples was a growing and common taste for 
polite literature. Such as the Romans possessed was, like 
their architecture, their science, philosophy and religion, bor- 
rowed outright from the Greeks. They were hungry for 
new ideas. These the Spaniards undertook to provide. 
They had descended from a race whose fabulous laws 
were written in verse, and something of that legendary 
inspiration must have accompanied them through ages of 
preceding strife, for suddenly Boetica was peopled with 
poets. In connection with this it may be noted that, apart 
from the crop of Augustan rhymsters and essayists, almost 
everything in the way of literature which Rome subse- 
quently produced is the work of Spaniards, Lucan and 
the Senecas were Boeticans — ^Martial, Florus, Quintillian, 
Pomponius Mila were all of that race. J'en passe et des 
meilleurs. The Romans, trained by the Greeks, were, it is 
true, the teachers. Under their heavy hand the young An- 



SPAIN IN ANTIQUITY. 9 

dalusians lost their way among the clouds of Aristophanes, 
just as we have done ourselves; they spouted the Tityre 
tUf and the arma virum, they followed the Odyssey and 
learned that in ages as remote to them as they are to 
us, Ulysses had visited their coast. Indeed the Romans 
did what they could, and if their pupils surpassed them it 
was owing to the lack-luster of their own imaginations. 
But the education of backward Spain was not Hmited to 
Greek poets and Augustan bores. Lessons in drawing were 
gfiven, not as an extra, but as part of the ordinary curricu- 
hun. The sciences, too, were taught, the blackboard was 
brought into use, and Euclid — another Greek — was ex- 
pounded on the very soil that under newer conquerors was 
to produce the charms and seductions of Algebra. Added 
to this, industry was not neglected. The Romans got from 
them not poets alone, but woolens, calicoes, and barbers too, 
emperors even. Trajan was an Andalou, so was Hadrian, 
and so also was that sceptered misanthrope Marcus Aure- 
Kns. As for arms, it is written in blood that the Romans 
would have no others than those which came from Spain. 
The plebs dressed themselves there. Strabo says that all 
the ready-made clothing came from Tarragona. From 
Malaga, which in a fair wind was but six days' sail from 
the Tiber's mouth, came potted herring, fat, black grapes 
that stained the chin, and wax yellow as amber. From 
Cadiz came the rarest purple, wine headier than Faler- 
nian, honey sweeter than that of Hymettus, and jars of 
pale, transparent oil. To Iviga the Romans sent their to- 
gas; there was a baphia there, a dyeing establishment, 
which, to be simply charming, needed but the signboard 
Morituri te salutamus. And from the banks of the Betis 



10 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

there came for the lupanars girls with the Orient in their 
eyes, and lips that said '* Drink me." In this pleasant 
foshion Rome, after conquering Spain, sat down to banquet 
on her products. The Imperial City then was not unlike a 
professional pugilist who is imable to find a worthy oppo- 
nent; possible rivals had been slugged into subjection. Per- 
haps she was weary, too. However great the future of a 
combatant may be, there comes an hour when contention 
palls and peace has charms. In any event, Rome at that 
time was more occupied in assimilating her dominions than 
in extending the wonders of her sway. And it was during 
this caprice that Spain found her fifty races fused in one. 
On the distant throne was a procession of despots, terribly 
tyrannical, yet doing what good they could. In return for 
flowers, fruits and pretty girls, they gave roads, aqueducts, 
arenas, games and vice. Claud introduced new fashions; 
Kero, the saturnalia. Each of the emperors did what he 
was able, even to Hadnau, who increased the number of 
Jews. It was during his leign that were felt the first 
tremors of that cataclysm in which antiquity was to dis- 
appear. Rome was so thoroughly mistress oi the world 
tiiat to master her Nature had to produce new races. The 
parturitions, as we know, were successful. Already the 
Hue victorious eyes of Vandal and of Goth were peering 
down at Rome; already they had whispered together, and 
over the hydromel had drunk to her fall. 

The Goths were a wonderful people. When they first 
appear in history their hair was tossed and tangled by the 
salt winds of the Baltic. Later, when in tattered furs they 
issued from the fens of the Danube, they startled the hard- 
iest warriors of the world, the descendants of that nursling 



SPAIN IN ANT2QUITT U 

of the gaunt she- wolf . Little by little from vagabond herd- 
ers they consolidated first into tribes, then into a nation, 
finally into an army that beat at the gates of Rome. 
There they loitered a moment, a century at most. When 
they receded again with plunder and with slaves they left 
an emperor behind. Soon they were more turbulent thaa 
ever. They swept over antiquity Kke a tide, their waves 
subsiding only to rise anew. And just as the earth was 
oscillating beneath their weight, from the steppes of Tar- 
tary issued cyclones of Huns. Where they passed, the 
plains remained forever bare. In the shock of their on* 
slaught the empire of the Goths was sundered. Some ci 
them, the Ostrogoths, went back to their cattle, others, the 
Visigoths, went down to have another word with Bome. It 
was then that their cousins the Vandals got their fingers on 
her throat and frightened the world with her cries. In the 
strain of incessant shrieks the Imperial City fell. From out 
the ruins a mitered prelate dragged a throne. Paganism had 
been strangled; antiquity was dead; new creeds and new 
races were refurbishing the world. Among the latter the 
Goths still prowled. In the advance through the centuries, 
in the journey from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, in the 
friction with the Attic refinement which the Romans had 
acquired, the Goths left some of their barbarism on the road 
— not much, however. Historians have it that when they 
took possession of Spain they manifested a love of art, a 
desire for culture, and that they affected the manners and 
usages of polite society. But historians are privileged liars. 
The majority of those who have treated the subject admired 
the Goths because they fancied them Christians, and in the 
admiration they placed them in fiattering contrast to their 



12 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

predecessors who were pagans, and to their successors who 
were Mnhammadans. As a matter of fact — one that is amply- 
attested in local chronicles — they were coarse, illiterate and 
stupid as carps; moreover, they were not Christians, they 
wei'O Arians, and they were Arians precisely as they were 
Goths — they were bom so. To the dogma of the Trinity and 
the consubstantiability or non-consubstantiability of Jesus 
the Christ they were as ignorant as of the formation of the 
earth. Throughout Europe at that time not a thread of 
light was discernible. The dark ages had begun. In the 
general obscurity the Goths were not a bit more brilliant 
than their neighbors. Under their hand civilization disap- 
peared ; in return they gave the Spanish nothing but guttur- 
als and a taste for chicanery. In ninety and nine cases, the 
specimens of architecture which cheap-trippers admire as 
due to them are of Saracen workmanship. The monuments 
which they did erect are not disproportioned perhaps ; yet, 
whatever the casuist may affirm, there is still a margin be- 
tween the commonplace and the beautiful. In brief, to the 
Visigoths the world owes less than nothing. They let Anda- 
lusia retrograde for three hundred years, and delayed the dis- 
covery and development of America. Previous to their com- 
ing Cadiz had been a famous seaport. The Romans called it 
The Ship of Stone. Its sons had been immemorial explorers. 
The presentment of another land across the sea was theirs by 
intuition. They were constantly extending their expeditions. 
They were in love with the sunset, they sailed as near it as 
they could, returned for more provisions, and sailed again; 
nearer, and ever nearer that way. To the Church the theory 
of the antipodes was an abominable heresy. It was taught 
that the earth was a flat parallelogram, its extremities walled 



SPAIN IN ANTIQUITY. 18 

by mountains that supported the skies. Lactance was par- 
ticularly vehement on this point, so too was St. Jerome. 
Vergilius in asserting the contrary threw Christendom into 
indignant convulsions. It may be remembered that the 
most serious obstacle which Colimibus subsequently encoim- 
tered lay in the decisions of the Fathers. Now Cadiz had 
been more or less converted before the advent of the Virf« 
goths, but it had not for that reason put aside its habits and 
customs. It continued to be essentially maritime, but when 
the Visigoths came, navigation languished, the Ship ol 
Stone no longer turned to the west, it foundered in a sea 
of ignorance which was then imdyked, and the possible 
discovery of America was indefinitely postponed. By wajr 
of oompensation, the Yidgoilis framed a code ctf laws the 
spirit <^ which still survives, and which is serviceable fa 
showing that the framers possessed two distinct traits, a 
love of agriculture and a hatred of Jews. Traits which are 
significant when it is understood that it was throng^ agri- 
culture they were supported and through the Jews they were 
overthrown. It was the Jews that beckcmed the Berbers 
and their masters the Arabs — ^the Moors, as those Arabe 
were called who had deserted the deserts for the Africaa 
Biviera. 



CHAPTER II 

THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA 

THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS— CORDOVA IN THE MIDDLE 
AGES— THE GLORIES OF AZ ZAHRA— THE RISE OF 

ALMANZOR 

It was in 712 that Spain, after remaining for nearly 
three centuries in the possession of the Visigoths, fell under 
the yoke of the Saracens. For some time past, from a 
palace at Tandjah (Tangiers), a Mussulman emir had been 
eying the strip of blue water which alone separated him 
from that Andalusia which, Hke the other parts of this 
world and all of the next, had been promised to the fol- 
lowers of Muhammad. The invasion that ensued was sin* 
gularly pacific. The enthusiasm which distinguished the 
youthful period of Muhammadism might account for the 
conquest which followed, even if we could not assign addi- 
tional causes — ^the factions into which the Goths had become 
divided, the resentment of disappointed pretenders to the 
throne, the provocations of one Count Julian, whose daugh- 
ter, seduced by Roderic, the last of the Gothic kings, caused 
him, it is said, to urge the Moors to come over. It is more 
surprising that a remnant of this ancient monarchy should 
not only have preserved its national liberty and name in the 
northern mountains, but waged for some centuries a suo 
cessful, and generally an offensive, warfare against the con- 
querors, till the balance was completely turned in its favor 
(14) 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA 16 

and the Moors were compelled to mamtain almost as ob» 
stinate and protracted a ccmtest for a small portion of ti^ e 
peninsiila. But the Arabian monarchs of Cordova foimd in 
their success and imagined security a pretext for indolence; 
even in the cultivation of science and contemplation of the 
magnificent architecture of their mosques and palaces th^ 
forgot their poor but daring enemies in the Asturias; whik^ 
according to the nature of despotism, the fruits of wisdom 
or bravery in c»ie generation were lost in the follies and 
effeminacy of the neict. Their kingdom was dismembered 
by successful rebels, who formed the states of Toledo^ 
Huesca, Saragossa, and others less eminent; and these, in 
their own mutual contests, not only relaxed their natural 
enmity toward the Christiaa princes, but sometimes sougfal 
tiieir alliance. 

Be that ae it may, of all who had entered S^m, 
whether Greek, Pficenician, Yaudal or Goth, the Moors were 
the most tolerant. The worship of God was undisturbed. 
The temples were not only preserved, new ones were built. 
In every town they ontered, presto I a mosque and a 
school, and mosques and schools that were entrancing as 
song. On the banks of the Betis, renamed the Great 
Eiver, Al-Ouad-al-Kebyr (Guadalquivir), twelve himdred 
villages bloomed like roses in June. From three hun- 
dred thousand filigreed pulpits the glory of Allah, and 
of Muhammad his prophet, was daily proclaimed. 

They were superb fellows, these Moors. In earlier 
ages the restless Bedouins, their ancestors, were rather 
fierce, and when the degenerate Sabaism they professed 
was put aside for the lessons of Muhammad, they were 
not only fierce, they were fanatic as well. A drop of 



16 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

blood shed for Allah, equaled, they were taught, whole 
months of fasting and of prayer. Thereafter, they 
preached with the scimiter. But in time, that great 
emollient, they grew less dogmatic. In the ninth cent- 
ury the court of Haroun al Raschid, was a free academy 
in which all the arts were cultivated and enjoyed. Un- 
der the Moors, Cordova surpassed Bagdad. 

In the tenth century it was the most beautiful and 
most civilized city of Europe. Concerning it Burke, in 
his "History of Spain" — a work to which we are much 
indebted — ^writes as follows: 

There was the Caliph's PaJace of Flowers, his Palace 
of Contentment, his Palace of Lovers, and, most beauti- 
ful of all, the Palace of Damascus. Rich and poor met 
in the Mezqidta, the noblest place of worship then stand- 
ing in Europe, with its twtive hundred marble columns, 
and its twenty brazen doors; the vast interior resplend- 
ent with porphyry and jasper and many colored precious 
stones, the walls ghttering with haxiaonious mosaics, the 
air perfumed with incense, fhe courtyards leafy with 
groves of orange trees — showing apples of gold in pict- 
ii3:es of silver. Throughout the city, there were foun- 
tains, basins, baths, with cold water brought from the 
neighboring mountains, already carried in the leaden 
pipes that are the highest triumph of the modern 
plumber. 

But more wonderful even than Cordova itself was the 
suburb and palace of Az Zahra. For five-and-twenty 
years the Caliph Abdur Rahman devoted to the building 
of this royal fancy one-third of the revenues of the State; 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA, 17 

and the work, on his death, was piously continued by 
his son, who devoted the first fifteen years of his reign 
to its completion. For forty years ten thousand work- 
men are said to have toil ad day by day, and the record 
of the refinement as well as the magnificence of the struc- 
ture, as it approached completion, almost passes belief. 
It is said that in a moment of exaltation the Caliph gave 
orders for the removal of the great mountain at whose 
foot the fairy city was built, as the dark sh^ide of the 
forests that covered its sidt« overshadowed the gilded 
palace of his creation. 

Convinced of the impossibility of his enterprise, An 
Hasir was content that all the oalks and beech lirees that 
grew on the mountain side shotdd be rooted up; and 
tiiat fig trees, and almonds, and pomegranates should be 
planted in their place; and thus the very hills and for- 
ests of Az Zahra were decked with blossom and beauty. 

Travelers from distant lands, men of all ranks and 
professions, princes, embassadors, merchants, pilgrims, 
theologians and poets, all agreed that they had never 
seen in the course of their travels anything that could 
be compared with Az Zahra, and that no imagination, 
however fertile, could have formed an idea of its bep,u- 
ties. Of this marvelous creation of Art and Fancy not 
one stone remains upon another — not a vestige to mark 
the spot on which it stood; and it is hard to reconstruct 
from the dry records of Arab iiistorians the fairy edifice 
of which we are told no words could paint the magnifi- 
cence. According to these authors the inclosing wall of 
the palace was four thousand feet in length from east 
to west, and two thousand two hundred feet from north 



18 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

to south. The greater part of this space was occupied 
by gardens, with their marble fountains, kiosks and orna- 
ments of various kinds, not inferior in beauty to the more 
strictly architectural parts of thd building. 

Four thousand three hundred coliunns of the rarest 
and most precious marbles supported the roof of the pal- 
ace; of thesa some were brought from Africa, some from 
Borne, and many were {Hresented by the Emperor at Coq- 
stantinoi^e to Abdur Bahtnan. The halls were paved 
with marled, d]qx)B9d in a Hiousand varied patterns. 
The walls were c^ the same material, and ornamented 
with frie'ses ci the most brilliant colors. The ceilings^ 
constmoted cl cedar, were erriched vn^ gilding on an 
asore gromid, 9ritb damasked woi^ and interlacing de- 
signs. Bversrthing^ in short, that the wealth and re- 
sources ci the Caliph could command was lavished on 
this favorite retreat, tuiil all that tiie art of Constant!* 
Ciople and Bagdad could ccMitribute to aid the taste and 
executive skill of the Spanish Arabs was enlisted to make 
it the most perfect wack ci its age. Did this palace of 
Zahra now remain to ns, sp.ys Mr. Fergusson, we could 
afford to despise the Alhambra and all the other works 
ci the declining ages of Moorish art. 

It was here that Abdur Bahman an Nasir received 
Sancho the Fat, and llieuda, que^i of Kavarre, the en- 
voys from Charles the Simple of France, and the embas- 
sadors from the Emperor Constantine at Constantinople. 
The reception of these imperial visitors is said to have 
been one of the mosi; magnificent ceremonies of that 
magnificent court. The orator who had been at first in* 
trusted with the ^)eech of ceremonial greeting, was act* 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 19 

ually struck dumb by the grandeur of the scene, and his 
place was taken by a less impressionable rhetorician. 

Nor was it only material splendor that was to be found 
at Cordova. At a time when Christian Europe was steeped 
in ignorance and barbarism, in superstition and prejudice, 
every branch of science was studied under the favor and 
protection of the Ommeyad Caliphs. Medicine, surgery, 
botany, chemistry, poetry, the arts, philosophy, literature, 
all flourished at the court and city of Cordova. Agriculture 
was cultivated with a perfection, both theoretical and prac- 
tical, which is apparent from the works of contemporary 
Arab writers. The Silo, so lately introduced into England 
as a valuable agricultural novelty, is not only the invention 
of the Arabs, but the very name is Arabic, as is that of the 
Azequia and of the Noria of modern Spain. Both the sec- 
ond and the third Abdur Rahman were passionately fond 
of gardening and tree-planting; and seeds, roots and cut- 
tings were brought from all parts of the world and accli- 
matized in the gardens at Cordova. A pomegranate of 
peculiar excellence, the Safari, which was introduced by 
the second Abdur Rahman from Damascus, still maintains 
its superiority, and is known in Spain to the present day 
as the Granada Zafari. 

Thus, in small things as in great, the Arabs of Cordova 
stood immeasurably above every other people or any other 
government in Europe. Yet their influence unhappily was 
but small. They surpassed, but they did not lead. The 
very greatness of their superiority rendered their example 
fruitless. Medieval chivalry, indeed, was largely the result 
of their influence in Spain. But chivalry as an institution 
had itself decayed long before a new-born Europe had at- 



80 HISTORY Of SPAJA 

tained to the material and moral perfection of the great 
Smirs of Cordova. Their political organization was un- 
adapted to the needs or the aspirations of Western Europe, 
and contained within itself the elements, not of develop- 
ment, but of decay. Their civilization perished, and left 
no heirs behind it — ^and its place knows it no more. 

The reign of Hakam II., the son and successor of the 
great Caliph, was tranquil,* prosperous and honorable, the 
golden age of Arab literature in Spain. The king was 
above all things a student, living the life almost of a re- 
cluse in his splendid retreat at Az Zahra, and concerning 
himself rather with the colleotioa of books for his celebrated 
library at Cordova than with the cares of State and the 
excitements of war. He sent agents to every city In the 
East to buy rare manuscripts and bring them back to Cor- 
dova. When he could not acquire originals he procured 
copies, and every book was carefully catalogued and worth- 
ily lodged. Hakam not aoly built libraries, but, tmlike 
many modem collectors, he is said to have read and even 
to have annotated the books that they contained; but as 
their number exceeded four hundred thousand, he musk 
have been a remarkably rapid student. 

The peaceful disposition of the new Caliph emboldened 
his Christian neighbors and tributaries to disregard the old 
treaties and to assert their independence of Cordova. But 
the armies of Hakam were able to make his rights re- 
spected, and the treaties were reaffirmed and observed. 
Many were the embassies that were received at Cordova 
from rival Christian chiefs; and Sancho of Leon, Feman 
Gonzalez of Castile, Garcia of Navarre, Eodrigo Velasquez 
of G^Jlicia, and fmaUy Ordofio the Bad, Pretender to the 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA, 21 

crown of Leon, were all represented at the court of Az 
Zahra. 

The reign of this royal scholar was peaceful and pros- 
perous; but kingly power tends to decline in libraries, and 
when Hakam ceased to build and to annotate, and his king- 
dom devolved upon his son, the royal authority passed not 
into the hands of the young Hisham, who was only nine 
years of age at the time of his father's death, but into those 
of the Sultana Sobeyra and of her favorite, Ibn-abu-amir, 
who is known to later generations by the proud title of Al- 
manzor.* 

Ibn-abu-amir began his career as a poor student at the 
University of Cordova. Of respectable birth and parentage, 
filled with noble ambition, born for empire and command, 
the youth became a court scribe, and, attracting the atten- 
tion of the all-powerful Sobeyra by the charm of his manner 
and his nobility of bearing, he soon rose to power and dis- 
tinction in the palace; and as Master of the Mint, and after- 
ward as Commander of the City Guard, he found means to 
render himself indispensable, as he had always been agree- 
able, to the harem. !N"or was the young courtier less ac- 
ceptable to the Caliph. Intrusted by him on a critical occa- 
tsion with the supremely difficult mission of comptroUing the 
expenditure of the army in Africa, where the general-in- 
cbief had proved over-prodigal or over-rapacious, Ibn-abu- 
amir acquitted himself with such extraordinary skill and 
tact that he won the respect and admiration, not only of 
the Caliph whose treasury he protected, but of the genera! 



* Al Manzor al Allah: "The Victor of God; or, Victo- 
rious by the Grace of God." 



22 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

whose extravagance he checked, and even of the common 
soldiers of the army, who are not usually drawn to a civil- 
ian superintendent, or to a reforming treasury official from 
headquarters. The expenses were curtailed; but the cam- 
paign was successful, and the victorious general and the 
yet more victorious Cadi shared on equal terms the honor 
of a triimiphal entry into the capital. 

On the death of Hakam, in September, 976, Ibn-abu- 
amir showed no less than his usual tact and vigor in sup- 
pressing a palace intrigue, and placing the young Hisham 
on the throne of his father. The Caliph was but twelve 
years of age, and his powerful guardian, supported by the 
harem, beloved by the people, and feared by the vanquished 
conspirators, took upon himself the entire administration of 
the kingdom, repealed some obnoxious taxes, reformed the 
organization of the army, and sought to confirm and estab- 
Ksh his power by a war against his neighbors in the north. 
The peace which had so long prevailed between Moor and 
Christian was thus rudely broken, and the Moslem once 
more carried his arms across the northern frontier. The 
campaign was eminently successful. Ibn-abu-amir, who 
contrived not only to vanquish his enemies but to please 
his friends, became at once the master of the palace and of 
the army. The inevitable critic was found to say that the 
victor was a diplomatist and a lawyer rather than a great 
general; but he was certainly a great leader of men, and if 
he was at any time unskilled in the conduct of a battle, he 
owned from the first that higher skill ci knowing whom to 
trust with conmiand. Nor was he less remarkable for his 
true military virtue of constant clemency to the vanquished. 

In two years after the death of Hakam, Ahnanzor had 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA, 28 

attained the position of the greatest of the mairea du palais 
of early France, and he ruled all Mohammedan Spain in 
the name <^ joimg Hisham, whose throne he forbore to 
occupy and whose person was safe in his custody. But if 
Almanzc»r was not a dilettante like Abdur Bahman 11., nor 
a collector of MSS. like Hakam, he was no vulgar fighter 
like the early kings of Leon or of Navarre. A library of 
books accompanied him in all his campaigns; literature, 
science, and the arts were mimificently patronized at court; 
a university cap high school was established at Cordova, 
where the great mosque was enlarged for the accommoda" 
tion of an increasing number of worshipers. Yet in one 
thing did he show his weakness. He could a£ford to have 
no enemies. The idol of the army, the lover of the queen, 
the prefect of the city, the guardian of the person of the 
Caliph, Almanzor yet found it necessary to conciliate the 
theologians ; and the theologians were only conciliated by 
the delivery of the great library of Hakam into the hands 
of the Ulema. The shelves were ransacked for works on 
astrology and magic, on natural philosophy, and the for- 
bidden sciences, and after an inquisition as formal and as 
thorough and probably no more intelligent than that which 
was conducted by the curate and the barber in the house 
of Don Quixote, tens of thousands of priceless volumes were 
publicly committed to the flames. 

Nor did Almanzor neglect the more practicfd or more 
direct means of maintaining his power. The army was 
filled with bold recruits from Africa, and renegades from 
the Christian provinces of the north. The organization 
and equipment of the regiments was constantly improved; 
and the troops were ever loyal to their civilian benefactor. 



24 HISTORY OP SPAIN, 

Ghalib, the commander-in-chief, having sought to overthrow 
the supreme administrator of the kingdom, was vanquished 
and slain in battle (981). The Caliph was practically a 
prisoner in his own palace, and was encouraged by his 
guardian and his friends, both in the harem and in the 
mosque, to devote himself entirely to a religious life, and 
abandon the administration of his kingdom to the Hajib, 
who now, feeling himself entirely secure at home, turned 
his arms once more against the Christians on the northern 
frontiers; and it was on his return to Cordova, after his 
victories at Simancas and Zamora in 981, that he was 
greeted with the well-known title of Almanzor. 

In 984 he compelled Bermudo II. of Leon to become his 
tributary. In 985 he turned his attention to Catalonia, and 
after a brief but brilliant campaign he made himself master 
of Barcelona. Two years later (987), Bermudo having dis- 
missed his Moslem guards and thrown off his allegiance to 
Cordova, Almanzor marched into the northwest, and after 
sacking Coimbra, overran Leon, entirely destroyed the capi- 
tal city, and compelled the Christian king to take refuge in 
the wild fastnesses of the Asturias. 

Meanwhile, at Cordova, the power of Almanzor became 
year by year more complete. Victorious in Africa as well 
88 in Spain, this heaven-born general was as skiUful in the 
council chamber as he was in the field. The iron hand was 
ever clad in a silken glove. His ambition was content with 
tbe substance of power, and with the gradual assumption 
of any external show of supreme authority in the State. In 
©91 he abandoned the office and title of Hajib to his son, 
Abdul Malik. In 992 his seal took the place of that of the 
monarch on all documents of State. In 993 he assimied the 



THB CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA, %& 

royal cognomen of Mowayad. Two years later he arro- 
gated to himself alone the title of Said ; and in 996 he ven- 
tured a step further, and assumed the title of Malik Karim, 
or king. 

But in 996 Almanzor was at length confronted by a 
rival. Sobeyra, the Ifavarrese Sultana, once his mistress, 
was now his deadly enemy, and she had determined that 
the queen, and not the minister, should reign supreme in 
the palace. Almanzor was to be destroyed. Hakam, a 
feeble and effeminate youth, was easily won over by the 
harem, who urged him to show the strength that he was 
so far from possessing, by espousing the cause of his mother 
against his guardian. The queen was assured of victory. 
The treasury was at the disposal of the conspirators. A 
military rival was secretly summoned from Africa. The 
minister was banished from the royal presence. The palace 
was already jubilant. 

But the palace reckoned without Almanzor. Making 
his way into Hakam's chamber, more charming, more per- 
suasive, more resolute than ever, Almanzor prevailed upon 
the Caliph not only to restore him to his confidence, but 
to empower him, by a solemn instrument under the royal 
sign-manual, to assume the government of the kingdom. 
Sobeyra, defeated but unharmed by her victorious and 
generous rival, retired to a cloister; and Almanzor, con- 
temptuously leaving to one of his lieutenants the task of 
vanquishing his subsidized rival in Africa, set forth upon 
the most memorable of all his many expeditions against 
Christian Spain (July 3, 997). 

Making his way, at the head of an army, through Ln- 
sitania into far away Gallicia, he took Corunna, and de- 



26 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

stroyed the great Christian church and city of Santiago de 
Compostella, the most sacred spot in all Spain, and sent the 
famous bells which had called so many Christian pilgrims 
to prayer and praise to be converted into lamps to illuminate 
the Moslem worshipers in the mosque at Cordova. 

Five years later, in 1002, after an uncertain battle, 
Almanzor died in harness, if not actually in the ranks, 
bowed down by mortal disease, unhurt by the arm of 
the enemy. The rehef of the Christians at his death was 
unspeakable; and is well expressed, says Mr. Poole, in the 
simple comment of the Monkish annalist, *'In 1002 died 
Almanzor, and was buried in Hell." 

In force of character, in power of persuasion, in tact, 
in vigor, in that capacity for command that is only 
found in noble natures, Almanzor has no rival among 
the Regents of Spain. His rise is a romance; his power 
a marvel; his justice a proverb. He was a brilliant 
financier; a successful favorite; a liberal patron; a stern 
disciplinarian; a heaven-born courtier; an accomplished 
general; and no one of the great commanders of Spain, 
not Gonsalvo de Aguilar himself, was more uniformly 
successful in the field than this lawyer's clerk of Cordova. 

Hisham, in confinement at Az Zahra, was still the 
titular Caliph of the West, but Almanzor was succeeded 
as commander-in-chief and virtual ruler of the country 
by his favorite son, his companion-in-arms, and the hero 
of an African campaign, Abdul Malik Almudaffar, the 
Hajib of 991. But the glory of Cordova had departed. 
Abdul Malik indeed ruled in his father's place for six 
years. But on his death, in 1008, he was succeeded by 
his half-brother, Abdur Rahman, who, as the son of a 



THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 27 

Christian princess, was mistrusted both by the palace and 
by the people; and the country became a prey to anarchy. 

Cordova was sacked. The Cahph was imprisoned; re- 
bellions, poisonings, crucifixions, civil war, bigotry and 
skepticism, the insolence of wealth, the insolence o£ 
power, a Mahdi and a Wahdi, Christian alliance, Berber 
domination, Slav mutineers, African interference, puppet 
princes, aU these things vexed the Spanish Moslems f<Hr 
thirty disastrous years; while a number of weak but 
independent sovereignties arose on the ruins of the great 
Caliphate of the West. 

The confused annals of the last thirty years of ihe 
rule of the Onmieyades are mere records of blood and 
of shame, a pitiful story of departed greatness. 

On the death of Hisham II., the Bomulus Ai^ua* 
tulus of Imperial Cordova, Moslem Spain was divided 
into a number of petty kingdoms, Malaga, Algeciras^ 
Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Badajoz, Saragossa, the Bal- 
earic Islands, Valencia, Murcia, Almeria, and Granada. 
And each of these cities and kingdoms made unceasing 
war one upon another. 

From the death of Hisham, if not from the death of 
Almanzor, the center of interest in the history of Spain 
is shifted from Cordova to Castile. 



CHAPTER III 

MEDIEVAL SPAIN" 

THE FOUNDERS OF MODERN SPAIN — THE KINGDOMS OF 

THE ASTURIAS AND OF LEON — THE DEFEAT AT 

RONCESVALLES — THE CID CAMPEADOR 

The Crescent had conquered, but the Cross endured. 
The refuge of the latter was in the Asturias. There — 
eight or ten years after the death of the last of the Gothic 
kings — Pelayo, one of the early heroes of Spanish his- 
tory, was reigning over refugees from Moslem rule. It 
was these refugees who laid the foundation of modem 
Spain, and it is related that in their fastness at Cova- 
dongo, thirty of them, with Pelayo at their head, act- 
ually routed, if they did not destroy, an entire army of 
four hundred thousand Moslem besiegers. 

The story is of course mythological, but the good fort- 
une of Pelayo did much to kindle the national spirit by 
which ultimately Spain was conquered for the Spaniards, 
and thus the story, if critically false, becomes metaphor- 
ically true. 

Nor [says Burke] do the Arabs seem to have made 
any attempt to retrieve or avenge the fortunes of the day. 
Well satisfied, no doubt, with their unopposed dominion 
over the rich plains of the genial south country, they were 
willing to abandon the bleak and inhospitable mountains 
(28^ 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN. 1*59 

to their wild inhabitants and the emboldened refugees 
whom they sheltered. Be the reason what it may, Pelayo 
seems to have had peace all the days of his life after his 
victory at Covadonga in 718. Prudently confining his 
attention to the development of his little kingdom, he 
reigned, it is said, for nineteen years at Cangas, and, 
dying in 737, he was peacefully succeeded by his son 
Favila. 

Pelayo, no doubt, was but a robber chieftain, a petty 
mountain prince, and the legends of his royal descent are 
of later date, and of obviously spurious manufacture; but 
Pelayo needs no tinsel to adorn his crown. He was the 
founder of the Spanish monarchy. 

Meanwhile, in the recesses of the Pyrenees, a second 
Christian kingdom, that of Navarre, had been founded by 
Garcias Iniguez, which, together with Catalonia and Ara- 
gon, Charlemagne a little later (778) entered and subdued. 
In repassing the Pyrenees, however, the Navarrese, led by 
Fortun Garcias, fell upon the Frankish troops and cut to 
pieces the rear guard, and even, it is said, th^ main body 
of the army. 

How far the Spanish Christians were arded, as it has 
been stated they were, by the Moors, it is impossible to dis- 
cover. The fact of such an alHance, in itself sufficiently 
improbable, is quite unnecessary to explain the ever-famous 
defeat at Roncesvalles. 

Nor can we speak with much greater confidence of the 
prowess or even of the existence of the equally famous Ro- 
land, in the ranks of the invading or evading army : or of 
that of the no less celebrated Bernardo del Carpio in the 
ranks of the pursuers. 



aO HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

Taillefer, who sang the song of Roland upon the battle- 
field of Hastings, and Terouldes, whose thirteenth century 
epic suggested the poems of Pulci, of Boiardo, and of great- 
est Ariosto, all these have made Roland one of the favorite 
heroes of the Middle Ages. But in the story, as it is told 
in the Spanish ballads, it is Bernardo del Carpio, the nephew 
of the chaste but pusillanimous Alfonso, who is the true 
hero of Roncesvalles, and who not only repulsed the host 
of Charlemagne, but caught up the invulnerable Roland in 
his arms, and squeezed him to death before his army. No 
carpet knight nor courtier was Bernardo, but a true Can- 
tabrian mountaineer. 

In 790 Alfonso II., the great-grandson of the great Pe- 
layo, then king of Oviedo, repulsed the Mussulman army 
with great slaughter, and abolished the ignominious tribute 
of one himdred virgins, an annual tribute paid to the Mo- 
hammedan ruler, fifty virgins being of noble and fifty of 
base or ignoble birth. From this circumstance is derived, 
by some historians, his surname of the Chaste; attributed 
by others to his having made a solemn vow of virginity, 
and observed it, even in marriage. This vow, and the aus- 
tere temper in which it probably originated, had consider- 
able influence over Alfonso's life. He so deeply resented his 
sister Ximena's private marriage with a subject, the Coimt 
of Saldanha, that he shut her up in a convent ; and putting 
out her husband's eyes, sentenced him to perpetual impris- 
onment. 

The royal line of Navarre or Sobrarve was at this time 
extinct, Ximenes Garcias, the grandson of Fortun Garoias, 
having died without children. The nobles availed them- 
selves of the opportunity to establish the famous code en- 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN. 31 

titled "Los Fueros de Sobrarve" — the laws of Sobrarve — 
which subsequently became the ground-work of the liber* 
ties of Aragon. Navarre was soon afterward recovered 
by the Moors, and Sobrarve included in the Spanish March. 

Alfonso ruled upward of fifty years. Incessant wars 
now followed between the followers of the Cross and the 
Crescent, and a frenzy for martyrdom on the part of the 
Christians had to be repressed by a Christian archbishop 
at the solemn request of the Cadis. 

Garcia of Oviedo died without children shortly after his 
accession ; when his brother Ordono II. reunited the whole 
of his father's dominions, 900-957. He transferred the seat 
ci government to Leon, and altered the title of King of 
Oviedo into that of King of Leon. 

This Ordono abandoned the peaceful policy of his greater 
father, and undertook many expeditions with varying and 
uncertain success against the Arabs. He plundered Merida 
in 917, and routed the Berbers in Southern Spain in 918. 
Yefc three years later, at Val de Junqueras (921), near 
Pamplona, the Christians suffered disastrous defeat. The 
usual rebellion at home was appeased by the treacherous 
execution or murder of no less than four counts of Castile 
In 922, and was followed by the king's death in 923. 

Of Fruela II. (923-925), Alfonso IV. (925-930), and 
Ramiro II. (930-950), little need be said, but that they 
lived and reigned as kings of Leon. 

To Ramiro, however, is due, at least, the honor of an 
authentic victory over the Moslem forces of the great Ca- 
Kph, Abdur Rahman an Nasir (939), at Simancas, and 
afterward in the same year at Alhandega. 

Ramiro, after the usual rebellion, abdicated, in 960, 



82 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

in favor of his son Ordono — who had married Urraca, 
daughter of the principal rebel of the day, Fernan Gon- 
zalez, count of Castile — and who succeeded his father as 
Ordofio III. 

But decapitation was a far more certain way of suppress- 
ing rebellion than matrimony; and Fernan Gonzalez lived 
to intrigue against his daughter and her royal husband in 
favor of Sancho, a younger brother of the king. Ordono, 
however, held his own against his brother, and revenged 
himself on his father-in-law, by repudiating his wife; who, 
with her personal and family grievances, was promptly ac- 
quired by Sancho, who succeeded, on his brother's death, 
to the crown of which he had failed to possess himself by 
force. But even as a legitimate sovereign, Sancho, sur- 
named tlie Fat, was not allowed to reign in peace. He 
was driven from his kingdom by that most versatile rebel. 
Count Fernan Gonzalez, and sought refuge at the court of 
his uncle Garcia of Navarre at Pamplona. Thence, in com- 
pany with Garcia, and his mother Theuda, he journeyed to 
the court of the CaHph at Cordova, where the distinguished 
visitors were received with great show of welcome by Abdur 
Bahman at Az Zahra; and where Hasdai, the Jew, the 
most celebrated physician of the day, succeeded in com- 
pletely curing Sancho of the distressing malady — a morbid 
and painful corpulency — ^which incapacitated him from the 
active discharge of his royal duties. 

The study and practice of medicine were alike disre- 
garded by the rude dwellers in Leon; but the Cordovan 
doctor, surpassing in his success, if not in his skill, the 
most celebrated physicians of the present day, contrived to 
reduce the king's overgrown bulk to normal proportions. 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN. 33 

and restored him to his former activity and vigor, both of 
body and mind. Nor was the skill of Hasdai confined to 
the practice of medicine. An accomplished diplomatist, 
he negotiated a treaty with his Christian patient, by which 
Sancho bound himself to give up ten frontier fortresses to 
the Caliph, on his restoration to the crown of Leon, while 
Don Garcia and Dona Theuda undertook to invade Castile 
in order to divert the attention of the common foe, the ever 
ready Fernan Gonzalez. 

In due time Sancho, no longer the fat, but the hale, 
returned to Leon at the head of a Moslem army, placed at 
his disposal by his noble host at Cordova, drove out the 
usurper, Ordono the Bad, and reigned in peace in his Chris- 
tian dominions. The visit of this dispossessed OrdoSo to 
the court of the Caliph Hakam at Cordova, in 962, is an 
interesting specimen of the international politics or policy 
of his age and country. 

As Sancho had recovered his throne by the aid of 
Abdur Rahman, so Ordono sought to dethrone him and 
make good his own pretensions by the aid of Hakam. 
The Caliph, already harassed by Fernan Gonzalez, and 
doubting the honesty of King Sancho, was not ill-pleased 
to have another pretender in hand, and Ordono was in- 
vited to Cordova, and received by Hakam in the palace 
at Az Zahra with the utmost pomp and display. The 
Leonese prince craved in humble language the assistance 
of the Moslem, and professed himseK his devoted friend, 
ally, and vassal; and he was permitted to remain at the 
Court of Hakam, to await the issue of events in the 
North. Some few days afterward a treaty was solemnly 
signed between the Caliph and the Pretender, and once 



84 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

more the glories of Az Zahra were displayed to the eyes 
of the astonished barbarian from Leon. 

Nor did the fame of these splendid ceremonies fail to 
reach Sancho in the northwest; and his spirit of inde- 
pendence was considerably cooled by the prospect of a 
Moslem army, headed by his cousin Ordono, making its 
appearance before his ill-defended frontiers. The ma- 
neuver was sufficiently familiar; and the reigning mon- 
arch lost no time in disassociating himself from the hos- 
tile proceedings of Fernan Gonzalez; and sending an 
important embassy to Hakam at Cordova, to assure him 
of his imwavering loyalty, he hastened to announce his 
readiness to carry out to the letter all the provisions of 
his recent treaty with the Caliph. Hakam was satisfied. 
Ordono languished disregarded at Cordova, despised alike 
by Moslem and Christian, but unharmed and in safety 
as the guest of the Arab. Sancho reigned in peace until 
967, when he was poisoned by the rebel coimt of the day, 
Sanchez of Gallicia. His son, who was known as Ramiro 
UI., an unwise and incapable monarch, reigned at Leon 
from 967 to 982, without extending the possessions or the 
influence of the Christians in Spain; and Bermudo II., 
who usurped the throne, was no match for the fiery Al- 
manzor, who ravaged his kingdom, took possession of his 
capital, and compelled the Christian Court to tak|f» refuge 
in the wild mountains of the Asturias, and once more to 
pay tribute to the Moslem at Cordova. 

Bermudo died in 999; and on the death of Almanzor, 
three years later, the Christian fortunes under the young 
Alfonso v., who had succeeded his father Bermudo, at 
the age of only five, began to mend. Cordova was given 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN. Z^ 

up to anarchy. The Moslem troops retured from North- 
ern Spain. Leon became once more the abode of the 
king and his court, and though AKonso gave his sister in 
marriage to Mohammed, an Emir or Vali of Toledo, he 
extended his Christian dominion in more than one foray 
against the declining power oi the Moslem. 

Alfonso v., who is known in Spanish history as the 
Restorer of Leon, sought to consolidate his own power, 
as he certainly exalted that of his clergy, by the sniQ- 
moning of a Council, after the manner of the Visigothio 
Councils of Toledo. The Council met at the city of Leon 
on the 1st of August, 1030, in the Cathedral Church ci 
St. Mary. The king and his queen Elviria presided, and 
all the bishops and the principal abbots and nobles of 
the kingdom took their seats in the assembly. And if 
there was no Leander, nor Isidore, nor Julian to impose 
his will upon king or council, the interests of the Church 
were not entirely overlooked. Of the fifty-eight decrees 
and canons of this Council, the first seventeen relate ex- 
clusively to matters ecclesiastical, the next twenty are 
laws for the government of the kingdom, the remaining 
thirty-one are municipal ordinances for the city of Leon. 

But Alfonso V. was not exempted from the usual re- 
bellions, and marriages, and assassinations, and execu- 
tions, which constituted the politics of the day. Garcia, 
the last Coimt of Castile, was treacherously slain in 1036; 
and Alfonso was himself more honorably killed in aa 
attack upon a Moslem town in Lusitania in 1037. 

The life of Fernan Gonzalez, the Warwick of medi- 
eval Spain, is almost as much overlaid with romantio 
legends as that of Roderic or Roland. The lives and 



86 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

deeds of his ancestors, and the origin of his ever-cele- 
brated County of Castile, are involved in the utmost con- 
fusion and obscurity; but Fernan Gonzalez himself is at 
least a historical personage. He married Sancha, daugh- 
ter of Sancho Abarca of Navarre, and their son, Garcia 
Fernandez, succeeded him as hereditary Count of Castile. 

As early as the year 905, Sancho, a Christian chief of 
whose ancestors and predecessors much has been written, 
much surmised, and nothing is certainly known, was king 
<» ruler of the little border state of Navarre. A prudent, 
as well as a warlike sovereign, he fortified his capital 
city of Pamplona, and when his son, in alliance with 
Ordofio II. of Leon, was defeated by the Moslems at Val 
de Junquera, the Navarrese not only made good their 
retreat to that celebrated fortress, but succeeded in course 
of a short time in driving the Moslems out of their coun- 
try. The grandson of this successful general was Sancho 
El Mayor — or the Great — ^the most powerful of the Chris- 
tian princes in Spain (970-1035). Besides Navarre and 
Sobrarve he held the lordship of Aragon; in 1026, in 
right of his wife, Muna Elvira, he became king or count 
of Castile; while his successful interference in the affairs 
of Leon made him virtual master of all Christian Spain 
outside the limits of the quasi Frankish county of Cata- 
lonia. 

Sancho the Great died in 1035, when his territories 
were divided, according to his will, among his four sons; 
and from this time forth the history of Navarre, so far 
as it is not included in the history of Aragon, of Castile, 
and of France, is a confused and dreary record of family 
quarrels, of plots and assassinations, of imcertain alii- 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN. 37 

ances, of broken treaties. The marriage of the Princess 
Berengaria with Richard I. of England, in 1191, failed 
to secure for Sancho V. the influence that he had hoped 
to secure: and with Sancho YI., who died in 1234, the 
male line of the house of Sancho liiiguez or Inigo, the 
founder of Navarre, was extinct. A French prince was 
chosen by the Navarrese to rule over them. And from 
the death of Sancho YI., in 1234, to the death of Charles 
the Bad, in 1387 — one hundred and fifty years — the his- 
tory of Navarre is that of France. 

Bermudo III., who succeeded, on the death of his 
father, Alfonso Y., in 1027, as king of Leon, was at 
once attacked by his powerful neighbors, and the little 
States were distracted by family quarrels and civil war 
until the death of Bermudo in battle, in 1037, when the 
male line of the house of Leon became extinct. 

On the death of Bermudo III. in 1037, Ferdinand L, 
king of Castile, the second son of Sancho the Great, suo 
ceeded to the kingdom of Leon, and became, after over 
twenty years of civil war (1058), the most powerful mon- 
arch in all Spain. The Moslems offered but an uncertain 
and half-hearted resistance to his arms. For while the 
Christians were growing strong, the Moslem empire was 
already declining to its fall. And the decay of the Cali- 
phate of Cordova, and the internal dissensions of the 
Arabs, enabled Ferdinand not only to recover all the ter- 
ritory that had been conquered by Almanzor, but to pur- 
sue the disheartened Moslem as far as Yalencia, Toledo^ 
and Coimbra. Ferdinand confirmed the Fueros of Al- 
fonso Y., and summoned a council at Coyanza (Yalencia 
de Don Juan), over which, with his Queen Sancha, he 



88 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

presided in 1050. All the bishops and abbots, together 
with a certain number of lay nobles thus assembled ad 
restaurationem nostrce Christianitatis, proceeded to 
make decrees or canons, after the manner of the Coun- 
cils of Toledo, of which the first seven were devoted to 
matters ecclesiastical, and the remainder connected with 
the civil government of the country. With territories 
thus recovered and augmented, with cities restored and 
fortified, Ferdinand determined to excel all his Christian 
predecessors, and to emulate the noble example of the 
Arab, by enriching his dominion, not with treasures of 
art or literature, with schools, with palaces, with manu- 
scripts — but with the bones of as many martyrs as he 
could collect. 

An army was raised for this sacred purpose, and the 
country of the Moors was once more invaded and harried 
by the Christian arms. Ibn Obeid of Seville, learning 
the objects of the invasion, offered Ferdinand every fa- 
cility for research in his city; and a solemn commission 
of bishops and nobles were admitted within the walls to 
seek the body of Justus, one of the martyrs of Diocle- 
tian. But in spite of all the diligence of the Christians, 
and all the good will of the Arabs, the sacred remains 
could nowhere be found. At length the spirit of Saint 
Isidore removed the difficulty by appearing miraculously 
before the Commission, and offering his own bones in the 
place of those of Justus, which were destined, said he, 
to remain untouched at Seville. The Commission was 
satisfied. And the body of the great Metropolitan, "fra- 
grant with balsamic odors," was immediately removed 
to the Church of St. John the Baptist at Leon — to 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN. 39 

the great satisfaction of both Christians and Moors, 
in 1003. 

It was on the occasion of the return of these blessed 
relics to the Christian capital that Ferdinand proclaimed 
the future division of his kingdom. For after all the 
success that had attended the Union of the dominions 
of Leon and Castile under the sole authority of Ferdinand, 
who rather perhaps for his sanctity than for his wisdom 
had earned the title of the Great , the king made the same 
grievous mistake that his father had done before him, in 
dividing his united territories at his death (1065) among 
his sons and daughters. To Sancho, the eldest son, he 
left the kingdom of Castile; to Alfonso, Leon and the 
Asturias; to Grarcia, Gallicaa; to his yoimger daughter, 
Elvira, the town and district of Toro, and to her elder 
sister Urraca the famous border city of Zamora, the moel 
debatable land in all Spain, and a strange heritage iat 
a young lady. Thus Castile and Leon were once more 
separated; and the usual civil wars and tamily intrigues 
naturally followed. Alfonso, though not at Bmt the most 
successful, survived all his rivals, and was at length 
proclaimed king of Leon and Castile. 

But the successes and glories of Alfonso YI., such ae 
they were, are overshadowed by the prowess of a Cas- 
tilian hero, whose exploits form one of the most favorite 
chapters in the national history of Spain — ^the Christian 
knight with the Moslem title— Ruy Diaz, The Cid. 

Two years before William of Normandy landed afc Hast- 
ings, a Castilian knight, a youth t^ ho had already won for 
himself the proud title of The Challenger, from his reckless 
bravery and his success in single combat, is found leading 



40 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

the royal armies of Sancho of Castile against the enemy., 
j?he knight was Ruy Diaz de Bivar. The enemy was Al- 
fonso YI. of Leon, the brother of Sancho, who was endeav- 
oring to reunite the inheritance divided by his father, in the 
good old medieval fashion in Spain. 

Of noble birth and parentage, a Castilian of the Castil- 
ians, Roderic or Ruy Diaz was born at Bivar, near Burgos, 
about the year 1040. His position in the army of Sancho 
was that of Alferez, in title the Standard-bearer, in effect 
the major-general or second in command, if not conamander- 
in-chief of the king's army. 

For seven years Alfonso of Leon and Bancho of Castile 
had been at war, each seeking to destroy the other; and at 
length at Golpejara, near Carrion, on the eve af what prom- 
ised to be a decisive battle, a solemn engagement was en- 
tered into by the brothers that whichever of the two were 
worsted in the encounter should resign his kingdom to the 
other without further bloodshed. The Castilians, in spite 
of Sancho and his famous Champion, were defeated at Gol- 
pejara; and Alfonso of Leon, foolishly trusting his brother's 
word, took no heed to improve his victory, and his unsus- 
pecting army was overwhelmed the next day by the Cas- 
tilian troops under Ruy Diaz de Bivar, the author of this 
exceedingly characteristic, if not entirely authentic, piece of 
treachery. 

It is scarcely surprising that the Cid was not trusted by 
Alfonso of Leon, when he, in his turn, succeeded to the 
crown of Castile. But for the moment Alfonso was not 
only depiived of his throne and of his liberty by his more 
successful brother, but he was compelled to purchase his 
life by a promise to enter the monastery of Sahagun. Dis- 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN, 41 

regarding this vow, and making good his escape to Toledo, 
the royal refugee was received with the usual hospitality of 
the Arab by El Mamun, the Moslem ruler of the city, who 
sheltered and entertained him, as he himself admitted, 
**like a son." 

Sancho meanwhile had turned his arms against his 
brother Garcia, whom he dispossessed of his territories; 
against his sister Elvira, who met with a similar fate, 
and, lastly, against his sister Urraca, who withstood him 
boldly in her city of Zamora. And not only did this time- 
honored fortress resist the attack of Sancho and his wily 
major-general, but the king was slain outside the walls of 
the city by one of his sister's knights. Alfonso thus not 
only recovered his own kingdom of Leon, but, swearing 
perpetual friendship with El Mamun of Toledo, he waa 
elected king of Castile by the Commons assembled at Bur- 
gos; and the defeated refugee of 1071 found himself, in 
less than two years, the greatest prince in Christian Spain ; 
Alfonso the Sixth of Leon and of Castile. 

Yet the legend runs that Alfonso was compelled to un» 
dergo the indignity of a public examination, and a triple 
oath before the knights and nobles assembled at Burgos, 
to the effect that he had had no share in the murder of 
King Sancho ; and the oath was administered by Ruy Diaz 
of Bivar, the companion in arms of the Castilian king, some- 
time the faithless enemy of Carrion, but now the acknowl- 
edged leader of the Castilian nobility. 

Alfonso of Leon may have forgiven the treachery in the 
field, but he never forgot the insult in the Council. He 
restrained his indignation, however, and was even induced 
by reasons of State to grant to the bold Castilian lord the 



42 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

hand of his cousin Ximena in marriage, and to intrust him 
with the command of an expedition into Andalusia. But 
the royal favor was of brief duration; and in 1081 we find 
that Roderic, partly owing to the intrigues of Garcia Or- 
donez, and partly to ;he enduring enmity of the king, was 
banished from the Christiau dominions. 

Of all the petty sovereignties that came into existence 
on the breaking up of the Ommeyad Caliphate of Cordova, 
that of Moctadir, the chief of the Ben-i-hud of Saragosea, 
was the most powerful in Northern or Central Spain ; and 
at the Moslem court of Sar^ossa, Buy Diaz, with his fame 
and his followers, was warmly welcomed (1081) by Moci&dke 
ae a 8aid or Oid — a lord or leader of the Arabs. He had 
been driven out oi Castile by Alfonso. He found a home 
and honorable command at Saragossa. 8o long as he could 
make war upon his neighbors, all comitries were alike to 
Boderic of Bivar. Kor was it long before his prowesi 
brought honor and profit to Moctadir, or, rather, to his 
son and successor, Motamin. 

Bamon Berenguer III., count of Barcelona, was en- 
gaged, like other Christian princes of his time, in chronic 
warfare with his Moslem neighbors; and Motamin, with 
his Castilian Cid, marching against the Catalans, defeated 
the Christians with great slaughter at Almenara, near 
Lerida, and brought Bamon Berenguer a prisoner to Sara* 
gossa (1081), where the victorious Cid was loaded wiih 
presents by the grateful Motamin, and invested with an 
authority in the kingdom subordinate only to that of the 
king himself. Two years later (1083) an expedition was 
undertaken by the Moslems, under Boderic, against their 
Christian neighbors in Ar&gon. King Sancho Bamirez 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN, 43 

was completely defeated by the Castilian champion, who 
returned once more to Saragossa loaded with booty and 
renown. In 1084 the Cid seems to have paid a friendly 
visit to the court of Alfonso VI. But although he was ap- 
parently well received, he suspected treachery, and, return- 
ing to the court of the Moslem, once more took service un- 
der the delighted Motamin. His next campaign, undertaken 
in the following year, was not against any Christian power, 
but against the hostile Moslems of northern Valencia, and 
was crowned with the usual success. Motamin died in 
1085, but the Cid remained in the service of his son and 
successor, Mostain, fighting against Christian and Moslem 
as occasion offered, partly for the King of Saragossa, but 
chiefly for the personal advantage of Ruy Diaz of Bivar. 
A stranger national hero it is hard to imagine I Nor were 
his subsequent proceedings in any degree less strange. 

Al Mamun, the host and protector of Alfonso VI., had 
died in 1076, leaving his grandson, Cadir, to succeed him 
as sovereign of Toledo. Abdulaziz, the viceroy of the sub- 
ject city of Valencia, took advantage of the weakness of 
the young prince to declare himself independent, and plac- 
ing himself under the protection of the Christians, under- 
took to pay a large subsidy to Alfonso VI. in return for his 
recognition and support. The subsidy was punctually paid, 
and, in spite of a present of no less than a hundred thou- 
sand pieces of gold handed over by Moctadir of Saragossa 
to Alfonso as the price of Valencia, Abdulaziz retained his 
hold of the city until his death in 1085. On this, numerous 
pretenders to the government immediately arose, including 
Moctadir of Saragossa, a purchaser for value, and the two 
sons of Abdulaziz; while Alfonso took advantage of the 



44 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

confiision that ensued to persuade Cadir to surrender To- 
ledo, much coveted by the Christian king, and to accept, 
or, more exactly, to retain, for himself the sovereignty of 
Valencia, under the humiliating protection of Castile. Al- 
fonso cared nothing that Toledo was the inheritance of his 
youthful ally, the home of his old protector, when he him- 
self was a hunted refugee. He cared nothing that the 
Valencians were hostile to Cadir, and that powerful neigh- 
bors were prepared to dispute his possession. He cared 
nothing that Moctadir, who had actually purchased the 
city from Alfonso himself, was on the way to make good 
his claim. A treaty was forced upon Cadir by which To- 
ledo was surrendered to Alfonso VI. (1085), and the Chris- 
tian king was bound to place and maintain the unhappy 
prince in possession of his own subordinate city of Valencia. 
Toledo thus became the capital of Christian Spain; and 
bhe evicted sovereign, escorted by a large force of Castilian 
broops under Alvar Fanez, made his sad and solemn entry 
Into Valencia, despised at once by the citizens of Toledo, 
whom he had abandoned to the Christian sovereign, and 
by the citizens of Valencia, where his power was main- 
tained by Christian lances. And costly indeed was this 
Christian maintenance. Six hundred pieces of gold is said 
to have been the daily allowance of the army of Castilian 
Mercenaries; and the taxes that were necessitated by their 
presence only added to the unpopularity of the government, 
many of Cadir's Moslem subjects fled from the city; and 
their place was taken by his Christian supporters or pen- 
sioners, whose rapacity was, if possible, exceeded by their 
cruelty. But the coming of the Almoravides gave a new 
turn to the fortunes of the city. Alvar Fanez and hie 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN. 45 

knights were recalled by Alfonso, and after the defeat of 
the Christians at Zalaca, in October, 1086, Cadir found 
himself threatened with immediate expulsion by his own 
citizens, supported by Mondhir of Lerida, the uncle of Mos- 
tain of Saragossa. In this difficulty he once more sought 
the protection of Christian lances, and applied for aid to 
the Cid, who immediately advanced on Valencia. 

An intriguer at all times and places, Roderic promised 
his support to Cadir in return for admission within the 
walls. He entered into a formal treaty with Mostain that 
the city should be his, if all the booty were handed over to 
the Campeador; and he sent envoys to Alfonso to assure 
him that in all these forays and alliances he thought only 
of the advantage of Christendom and the honor of Castile. 
Mondhir, overawed by the appearance of the allied army 
from Saragossa, hastily retired from before Valencia, where 
Mostain and his Christian Said were welcomed as deliverers 
by Cadir. 

But although the Cid imposed a tribute upon the un- 
happy Valencians, he failed to give over the city to Mos- 
tain, and assuring Cadir of his constant support, as long 
as a monthly allowance of ten thousand golden dinars was 
nunctually paid, he withdrew himself from the remon- 
strances of the disappointed Mostain — to whom he con- 
tinued to protest his continued devotion — on the plea of 
a necessary visit to his Christian sovereign in Castile, to 
explain or excuse his position, and to engage some Cas- 
tilian troops for his army. Mostain, during his absence, 
perceiving that he could not count upon so versatile and so 
ambitious a Said in the matter of the handing over of Va- 
lencia, entered into an alliance with his old enemy, Kamon 



46 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

Berenguer, of Barcelona; and the Catalans had actually 
laid siege to the city when the return of the Cid induced 
them to abandon their trenches and retire to Barcelona. 

If the Cid was a hero of romance, he did not wield 
his sword without the most magnificent remuneration. 
At this period of his career (1089-92), in addition to the 
eighty thousand golden pieces received from Ramon Ber- 
enguer, he is said to have drawn fifty thousand frona the 
son of Mondhir, one hundred and twenty thousand from 
Cadir of Valencia, ten thousand from Albarracin, ten 
thousand from Alpuente, six thousand from Murviedro, 
six thousand from Segorbe, four thousand from Jerica, 
and three thousand from Almenara. 

With such an amoimt of personal tribute, the Cid 
cannot, says Lafuente, have been greatly inconvenienced 
by the action of Alfonso VI. in despoiling him of his 
estates. Supporting his army of seven thousand chosen 
followers on the rich booty acquired in his daily forays 
upon Eastern Spain, from Saragossa to Alicante; regard- 
less of Christian rights, but the special scourge of the 
Moslems; no longer a Saragossan general, but a private 
adventurer, the Cid could afford to quarrel at once with 
Mostain and with Alfonso, and to defy the combined 
forces of Mondhir and Ramon Berenguer. 

The rivalry between the Cid and the Catalan was ever 
fierce in Eastern Spain. The opposing armies met at Tebar 
del Pinar in 1090, and although the Cid was wounded in 
the battle, his army was completely successful. Mondhir 
fled from the field ; and Ramon Berenguer was once more 
a prisoner in the hands of Roderic. Nor was the Christian 
count released from a confinement more harsh than was 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN, 47 

generous or necessary until he had given good security fop 
the payment of the enormous ransom of eighty thousand 
marks of gold. 

It is not easy, nor would it be fruitful to follow the va- 
rious movements of the Cid at this period of his career. 
His quarrels and his intrigues with Alfonso of Castile, with 
Cadir of Valencia, with the various parties at the court of 
Saragossa, with Ramon Berenguer at Barcelona, and even 
with the Genoese and Pisans, are neither easy nor inter- 
esting to follow. But his principal objective was the rich 
city of Valencia. Alfonso of Leon, ever jealous of his great 
and most independent subject, resolved to thwart him in his 
design; and having secured the co-operation of the Pisans 
and Genoese, who had arrived with a fleet of four himdred 
vessels to assist the Cid, the king took advantage of the 
absence of his rival on some foray to the north of Saragossa 
to advance upon Valencia, and to push forward his opera- 
tions to the very walls of the city. Ruy Diaz riposted after 
his fashion. 

Leaving the Valencians to make good the defense of 
their own city, he carried fire and sword into Alfonso's 
peaceful dominions of Najera and Calahorra, destroying 
all the towns, burning all the crops, slaughtering the Chris- 
tian inhabitants 5 and razing the important city of Logrono 
to the ground. This savagery was completely successful, 
and met with no reproach. The Cid is one of those fortu- 
nate heroes to whom all things are permitted. His excesses 
are forgotten; his independence admired; his boldness and 
his success are alone remembered. Alfonso, thus rudely 
summoned to the north of the Peninsula, abruptly raised 
the siege of Valencia. 



48 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

Nor was the king's action at Valencia without a favor- 
able influence upon the fortunes of the Cid. Far from 
wresting the city from the grasp of Roderic, Alfonso had 
rather precipitated the crisis which was ultimately to lead 
to his triumphal entry as the independent ruler of the city. 
Cadir was murdered by a hostile faction within the walls : 
and the Cid, advancing with his usual prudence, spent some 
time in possessing himself of the suburbs and the approaches 
to the city, before the siege was commenced in good earnest, 
in July, 1093. 

The operations were carried on in the most ferocious fash- 
ion by the attacking force. Roderic burned his prisoners 
alive from day to day within the sight of the walls, or 
caused them to be torn in pieces by his dogs under the very 
eyes of their fellow-townsmeti. 

The blockaded city was soon a prey to the utmost hor- 
rors of famine. Negotiation was fruitless. Succor came 
not. Neither Christian nor Moslem, neither Alfonso the 
Castilian, nor Yusuf the Almoravide, nor Mostain of Sara- 
gossa, appearing to defend or to relieve the city, Valencia 
capitulated on the 15th of June, 1094. 

The Moslem commander, Ibn Jahaf, was burned alive. 
The Moslem inhabitants were treated with scant considera- 
tion, and the Cid, as might have been supposed, proclaimed 
himself sovereign of Valencia, independent of either Chris- 
tain Alfonso or Moorish Mostain ; and at Valencia he lived 
and reigned until the day of his death, but five years after- 
ward, in 1099. His rule was often threatened by the Al- 
moravides ; but as long as the champion lived they could 
effect no entry within the walls of his city. 

For full three years after his death, moreover, his widow 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN. 49 

Ximena, and his cousin Alvar Fanez, maintained a precari- 
ous sovereignty at Valencia. At length, unsupported by 
Alfonso of Leon, and unable to stand alone in the midst 
of the Moslems, they retired to Burgos, carrying with them 
the body of the Cid embalmed in precious spices, borne, as 
of old, on his faithful steed Babieca, to its last resting place 
in Castile. Valencia was immediately occupied by the Al- 
moravides, and became once more a Moslem stronghold; 
nor did it finally pass into Christian hands until it was 
taken by James the First of Aragon in 1238. The Cid 
was buried in the Monastery of Cardena, near Burgos ; and 
the body of his heroic wife, Dona Ximena, who died in 
1104, was laid by his side in the tomb. 

The legend of the marriage of the Cid's daughters with 
the Infantes of Carrion, of their desertion, and of the ven- 
geance of the Cid upon their unworthy husbands, is un- 
doubtedly an invention of the Castilian minstrels. 

The legend of the death of the Cid's son at the battle 
of Consuegra is certainly fallacious. There is no evidence 
that a son was ever born to him at all. But he had un- 
doubtedly two daughters, one of whom, Christina, married 
Ramiro, Infante of Navarre, and the other, Maria, became 
the countess of Ramon Berenguer III. of Barcelona. The 
issue of Ramon Berenguer III. was a daughter who died 
childless, but a granddaughter of Ramiro of Navarre mar- 
ried Sancho III. of Castile, whose son, Alfonso VIII., was 
the grandfather both of St. Ferdinand and of St. Louis. 
And thus in a double stream, through the royal houses of 
Spain and of France, the blood of the Cid is found to flow 
in the veins of his Majesty Alfonso XIII., the reigning 
king of Spain. 



60 HISTORY OJb SPAIN. 

To understand or appreciate the position that is occu- 
pied by the Cid in Spanish history is at the present day 
supremely difficult. A medieval condottiere in the service 
of the Moslem, when he was not fighting to fill his own 
coffers with perfect impartiality against Moor or Christian : 
banished as a traitor by his Castilian sovereign, and con- 
stantly leading the forces of the Infidel against Aragon, 
against Catalonia, and even against Castile, he has become 
the national hero of Spain. Warring against the Moslem 
of Valencia, whom he pitilessly despoiled, with the aid of 
the Moslem of Saragossa, whose cause he cynically betrayed, 
while he yet owned a nominal allegiance to Alfonso of Cas- 
tile, whose territories he was pitilessly ravaging ; retaining 
conquered Valencia for his personal and private advantage, 
in despite of Moslem or Christian kings, he has become the 
type of Christian loyalty and Christian chivalry in Europe. 
Avaricious, faithless, cruel and bold, a true soldier of fort- 
une, the Cid still maintains a reputation which is one of the 
enigmas of history. 

The three favorites of medieval Spanish romance, says 
Senor Lafuente, Bernardo del Carpio, Fernan Gonzalez, 
and the Cid, have this at least in common, that they were 
all at war with their lawful sovereigns, and fought their 
battles independently of the crown. Hence their popular- 
ity in Spain. The Castilians of the Middle Ages were so 
devoted to their independence, so proud of their Fueros, 
such admirers of personal prowess, that they were disposed 
to welcome with national admiration those heroes who 
sprang from the people, who defied and were ill-treated 
by their kings. 

The theory is both ingenious and just, yet it by no 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN. SI 

means solves the difficulty. Euy Diaz of Bivar, who was 
one of the proudest nobles of Castile, can scarcely be said 
to have sprung from the people, nor do we clearly perceive 
why his long service imder Moslem kings, even though he 
was a rebel against his own sovereign, should have en- 
deared him to the Christian Spaniards, however independ- 
ent or however democratic. Yet we may learn at least 
from the character of the hero, ideal though it be, that the 
medieval Castilians were no bigots, and that they were 
slaves neither to their kings nor to their clergy. 

The people of Aragon no doubt held their king in a 
more distinctly constitutional subjection. No Castilian 
chief -justice was found to call the sovereign to order: 
no Privilege of Union legalized a popular war in defense 
of popular liberties. But Roderic took the place of the 
justiciary in legend, if not in history, when he adminis- 
tered the oath to Alfonso at Burgos; and he invested him- 
self with the privilege of warring against an aggressive 
king, when he routed Alfonso's forces, and burned his 
cities, to requite him for his attack upon Valencia. 

It is this rebellious boldness which contributed no doubt 
very largely to endear the Cid to his contemporaries. It 
is one of the most constant characteristics of his career; one 
of the features thai, is portrayed with equal clearness by the 
chroniclers and the ballad makers of Spain. For the Cid 
is essentially a popular hero. His legendary presentment 
is a kind of poetic protest against arbitrary regal power. 
The Cid ballads are a pasan of triumphant democracy. The 
ideal Cid no doubt was evolved in the course of the twelfth 
century; and by the end of the fifteenth century, when the 
rule of kings and priests had become harder and heavier 



6% HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

in Spain, an enslaved people looked back with an envious 
national pride to the Castilian hero who personified the 
freedom of bygone days. 

The Cid is the only knight-errant that has survived the 
polished satire of Cervantes. For his fame was neither lit- 
erary nor aristocratic ; but, like the early Spanish proverbs, 
in which it is said he took so great a delight, it was em- 
bedded deep in the hearts of the people.* And although 
the memory of his religious indifference may not have added 
to his popularity in the sixteenth century in Spain, it is a 
part of his character which must be taken into account in 
gauging the public opinion of earlier days. 

From the close of the eighth century to the close of the 
fifteenth, the Spanish people, Castilians and Aragonese, 
were, if anything, less bigoted than the rest of Europe. 
The influence of their neighbors the Moors, and of their 
Arab toleration, could not be without its effect upon a peo- 
ple naturally free, independent, and self-reliant, and the 
Cid, who was certainly troubled with no religious scruples 
in the course of his varied career, and who, according to 
a popular legend affronted and threatened the Pope on his 
throne in St. Peter's, on account of some fancied slight, f 

* Mas Moros mas ganancia^ *'The more the Moors, 
the greater the booty," was one of his sayings, and it has 
passed into a well-known national proverb. 

t Having kicked to pieces the splendid furniture and 
beaten the Papal chamberlain, he proceeded to threaten to 
caparison his horse with the rich hangings of the chapel, 
if the Pope refused him instant Absolution ! 

Si no me absolveis, el Papa, 
Seriaos mal contado 
Que de vuestras ricas ropas 
Cubrire yo mi caballo ! 
—Wolf and Hofmann, "Cid Ballads.'' 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN. 53 

could never have been the hero of a nation of bigots. The 
degenerate Visigoths from the time of Reccared the Catho- 
lic to the time of Roderic the Vanquished could never have 
produced a Cid. Yet, even in the dark days of Erwig and 
Egica, there was found a JuHan, who boldly maintained 
the national independence against the pretensions of the 
Pope of Rome. For a thousand years after the landing 
of St. Paul — ^if, indeed, he ever landed upon the coast — the 
Spanish Church was, perhaps, the most independent in Eu- 
rope. The royal submission to the Papal authority, first by 
Sancho I. of Aragon, in 1071, and afterward by Alfonso 
VI. cf Leon, in 1085, in the matter of the Romish Ritual, 
was distinctly unpopular. Peter II. found no lack of re- 
cruits for the army that he led against the Papal troops 
in Languedoc, and King James I., the most popular of the 
kings of Aragon, cut out the tongue of a meddlesome bishop 
who had presumed to interfere in his private affairs (1246). 
It was not until the Inquisition was forced upon United 
Spain by Isabella the Catholic, and the national lust for 
the plunder of strangers was aroused by the destruction of 
Granada, that the Spaniard became a destroyer of heretics. 
It was not until the spoliation and the banishment of Jews 
and Moriscos, and the opening of a new world of heathen 
treasure on the discovery of America, that the Castilian, 
who had always been independent himself, became intol- 
erant of the independence of others. Then, indeed, he 
added the cruelty of the priest to the cruelty of the sol- 
dier, and wrapping himseK in the cloak of a proud and 
uncompromising national orthodoxy, became the most fero- 
cious bigot in two unhappy worlds. 

But in the beginning it was not so. And if the Cid 



£^ HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

could possibly have been annoyed by Torquemada, his 
knights would have hanged up the Inquisitor on the 
nearest tree. No priests' man, in good sooth, was Roderio 
of Bivar, nor, save in that he was a brave and determined 
soldier, had the great CastiHan Free Lance anything in 
common with the more conventional heroes of United Spain. 

If history affords no reasonable explanation of his un- 
rivaled renown beyond that which has already been sug- 
gested, we find but little in the early poetry to assist us. 
The Cid ballads impress us "more by their number than 
their light." They are neither very interesting in them- 
selves, nor are they even very suggestive. Only thirty- 
seven ballads are considered by Huber to be older than 
the sixteenth century. "La plupart de ces romances," says 
M. Dozy, **accusent leur origine moderne;" and according 
to Mr. Ormsby they do but little toward the illustration of 
the Cid, either as a picturesque hero of romance or as a 
characteristic feature of medieval history. 

The great French dramatist scarcely touches the true 
history of his hero. The scene of the play is laid at Se- 
ville, where no Christian king set his foot for a hundred 
and fifty years after the death of Roderic. The title which 
he accepted from his employer, Mostian of Saragossa, is 
said to have been granted by Alfonso of Leon, after the 
capture of two imaginary Moorish kings, unknown to his- 
tory, in an impossible battle on the banks of the Guadal- 
quivir, which was never seen by the Cid. The whole 
action of the play turns upon the moral and psychological 
difiiculties arising from the purely legendary incident of 
the killing of Chimene's father by her lover, avenging an 
insult offered to his own sire, and of the somewhat artifi- 



MEDIEVAL SPAIN, 55 

cial indignation of the lady, until she is appeased by a 
slaughter of Moors. Corneille's drama abounds in noble 
sentiments expressed in most admirable verse; but it does 
not assist us to understand the character of the Cid, nor 
the reasons of his popularity in his own or in any other 
country. But certain at least it is that from the earliest 
times the story of his life and his career took a strong hold 
upon the popular imagination in Spain, and his virtues and 
his vices, little as they may seem to us to warrant the popu- 
lar admiration, were understood and appreciated in the age 
in which he lived, an age of force and fraud, of domestic 
treason and foreign treachery, when religion preached little 
but battle and murder, and patriotism was but a pretext for 
plunder and rapine. Admired thus, even in his lifetime, 
as a gallant soldier, an independent chieftain, and an ever 
successful general, fearless, dexterous, and strong, his free 
career became a favorite theme with the jongleurs and 
troubadours of the next generation; and from the Cid of 
history was evolved a Cid of legendary song. 

It is most difficult at the present day to know exactly 
where serious history ends and where poetry and legend 
begin. Yet the Cid as represented to us by M. Dozy, one 
of the most acute of modern investigators of historic truth, 
18 not so very different from the Cid represented by Southey, 
or even by earlier and less critical poets, but that we may 
form a reasonable estimate, from what is common to both 
history and tradition, of what manner of man he was. The 
Cid of the twelfth century legends, indeed, though he may 
be more marvelous, is by no means more moral than the 
Cid of history. It was reserved for the superior refinement 
of succeeding generations, and more especially for the anony- 



66 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

tnouB author of the poem of the thirteenth o^itury to evolve 
a hero of a gentler and nohler mold; a creature conforming 
to a higher ideal of knightly perfection. Prom this time 
forward we have a glorified Cid, whose adventures are no 
more historically false, perhaps, than those of the unscrupu- 
lous and magnificent Paladin of the legends and romances 
of the twelfth century, but whose character possesses all 
the dignity and all the gloFy with which he could be in- 
vested by a generous medieval imagination. And it is this 
refined and idealized hero; idealized, yet most real; refined^ 
yet eminently hmnan, that has been worshiped by nineteen 
generations of Spaniards as the national hero of Spain. 

Ruy Diaz — ^as he lived and died — ^was probably no 
worse a man than any of his neighbors. Far better than 
many of them he was, and undoubtedly bolder and strong- 
er, more capable, mor^ adrdt, cmd more successful. 

Seven of the Christian princes of Spain at this period 
fell in battle warring against their own near relations, 
or were murdered by their hands in cold blood. Garcia 
ci Castile was slain by the sword of the Yelas. Bermudo 
III. of Leon and Garcia Sanchez of Kavarre died fight- 
ing against their brother, Ferdinand of Castile. Sancho 
II. of Castile was assassinated by order of his sister Ur- 
raca, besieged by him in her city of Zamora. Among the 
Christian kings of the century immediately before him, 
Glarcia of Gallicia was strangled in prison by the hands 
of his brothers, Sancho and Alfonso; Sancho G^aicia of 
Navarre was assassinated by his brother Eamon, at Pe- 
fialva; Eamon Berenguer II. of Barcelona died by the 
d^ger of his brother Berenguer Ramon; Sancho the Fat, 
in 967, was poisoned at a friendly repast by Gonzalo 



MEDIEVAL SPAiy, 57 

Sanchez; Ruy Velasquez of Castile, in 986, murdered his 
seven nephews, the unfortunate Infantes de Lara; Sancho 
of Castile, in 1010, poisoned his mother, who had endeav- 
ored to poison him. At the wedding festivities at Leon, 
in 1026, Garcia, Count of Castile, was assassinated at 
the church door, and the murderers were promptly burned 
alive by his friends; Garcia of Navarre, in 1030, as an 
incident in a family dispute about a horse, accused his 
mother of adultery. Such was the standard of the elev- 
enth century in the north of the Peninsula. 

To judge the Cid, even as we now know him, accord- 
ing to any code of modern ethics, is supremely unreason- 
able. To be sure, even now, that we know him as he 
was, is supremely presumptuous. But that Ruy Diaz was 
a great man, and a great leader of men, a knight who 
would have shocked modem poets, and a free lance who 
would have laughed at modern heroes, we can have no 
manner of doubt. That he satisfied his contemporaries 
and himself; that he slew Moors and Christians as occa- 
sion required, with equal vigor and absolute impartiality; 
that he bearded the King of Leon in his Christian coun- 
cil, and that he cozened the King of Saragossa at the 
head of his Moslem army; that he rode the best horse 
and brandished the best blade in Spain; that his armies 
never wanted for valiant soldiers, nor his coffers for gold 
pieces; that he lived my Lord the Challenger, the terror 
of ©very foe, and that he died rich and respected in the 
noble city that had fallen to his knightly spear — of all 
this at least we are certain ; and, if the tale is displeasing 
to our nineteenth century refinement, we must be content 
to beHeve that it satisfied the aspirations of medieval Spain. 



CHAPTER IV 
MOORISH SPAIN 

THE LAST OF THE CALIPHS — THE RISE AND FALL OF 

GRANADA — FERDINAND AND ISABELLA — THE 

GREAT CAPTAIN 

Moslem rule in Spain may be conveniently summar- 
ized as consisting, first, in the Caliphs of Cordova; sec- 
ond, in the dynasty of the Almoravides; third, in that 
of the Almohades; and, finally, the kings of Granada. 

Concerning the first it may be noted that in the long 
reign of the last Abdur Rahman were the seeds of its 
dissolution. Brooking no rival during his lifetime, at his 
death he found no successor. Then upon the ruins of 
the great CaHphate twenty independent and hostile dynas- 
ties surged. Meanwhile Alfonso was eying them from 
his citadel. At the gates of Valencia was the Cid. For 
common safety the Moslem rivals looked for a common 
defender. In Africa that defender was found in Yusuf, 
the Berber chief of a tribe of religious soldiers known as 
the Almoravides. 

Invited to Spain he crossed over, and, meeting Alfonso 
at Zalaca, near Bajadoz, on the 23d of October, 1086, he 
routed him with great and historic slaughter. 

Yusuf [says Burke] had come as a Moslem defender, 
but he remained as a Moslem master. And once more 
(58) 



MOORISH SPAIN. fiO 

in Spanish history, the over-powerful ally turned his vic- 
torious arms against those who had welcomed hinn to 
their shores. Yet Yusuf was no vulgar traitor. He had 
sworn to the envoys of the Spanish Moslems that he 
would return to Africa, in the event of victory, without 
the annexation to his African empire of a field or a city 
to the north of the Straits. And his vow was religiously 
kept. Retiring empty-handed to Mauritania, after the 
great battle at Zalaca, he returned once more to Spain, 
unfettered on this new expedition by any vow, and set 
to work with his usual vigor to make himself master d 
the Peninsula. Tarifa fell in December. The next year 
saw the capture of Seville, and of all of the principal 
cities of Andalusia. An army sent by Alfonso VI., imd^ 
his famous captain, Alvar Fanez, was completely de- 
feated, and all Southern Spain lay at the feet of the 
Berber, save only Valencia, which remained impregnable 
so long as the Cid hved to direct the defense. In 1103, 
after the hero's death, Valencia succumbed, and all Spain 
to the south of the Tagus became a province of the great 
African empire of the Almoravides. 

The rule of these hardy bigots was entirely imlike that 
of the Ommeyad Caliphs of the West. Moslem Spain had 
no longer even an independent existence. The sovereign 
resided not at Cordova, but at Morocco. The poets and 
musicians were banished from court. The beauties of Az 
Zahra were forgotten. Jews and Christians were alike per- 
secuted. The kingdom was governed with an iron hand. 
But if the rule of the stranger was not generous, it was just, 
and for the moment it possessed the crowning merit that 
it was efficient. The laws were once more respected. The 



60 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

people once more dreamed of wealth and happiness. But 
it was little more than a dream. 

On the death of Yusuf in 1107 the scepter passed into 
the hands of his son Ali, a more sympathetic but a far less 
powerful ruler. In 1118 the great city of Saragossa, the 
last bulwark of Islam in the north of the Peninsula, was 
taken by Alfonso I. of Aragon, who carried his victorious 
arms into Southern Spain, and fulfilled a rash vow by eat- 
ing a dinner of fresh fish on the coast of Granada. 

Yet it was by no Christian hand that the empire of the 
Almoravides was to be overthrown. 

Mohammed Ibn Abdullah, a lamplighter in the Mosque 
at Cordova, had made his way to remote Bagdad to study 
at the feet of Abu Hamid Algazali, a celebrated doctor of 
Moslem law. The strange adventures, so characteristic of 
his age and nation, by which the lowly student became a 
religious reformer — a Mahdi — and a conqueror in Africa, 
and at length overthrew the Almoravides, both to the 
north and the south of the Straits of Gibraltar, forms a 
most curious chapter in the history of Islam ; but in a brief 
sketch of the fortunes of medieval Spain, it must suffice 
to say that having established his rehgious and miUtary 
power among the Berber tribes of Africa, Ibn Abdullah, 
the Mahdi, landed at Algeciras in 1145, and possessed him- 
self in less than four years of Malaga, Seville, Granada, 
and Cordova. The empire of the Almoravides was com- 
pletely destroyed; and, before the close of the year 1149, 
all Moslem Spain acknowledged the supremacy of the 
Almohades. 

These more sturdy fanatics were still African rather 
than Spanish sovereigns. Moslem Spain was adminis- 



MOORISH SPAIN. 61 

tered by a Vali deputed from Morocco; and Cordova, 
shorn of much of its former splendor, was the occasional 
abode of a royal visitor from Barbary. For seventy years 
the Almohades retained their position in Spain. But their 
rule was not of glory but of decay. One high feat of arms 
indeed shed a dying luster on the name of the Berber prince 
who reigned for fifteen years (1184-99) under the auspicious 
title of Almanzor, and his great Moslem victory over Al- 
fonso II. at Alarcon in 1195 revived for the time the droop- 
ing fortunes of the Almohades. But their empire was al- 
ready doomed, decaying, disintegrated, wasting away. 
And at length the terrible defeat of the Moslem forces 
by the united armies of the three Christian kings at the 
N"avas de Tolosa in 1212, at once the most crushing and 
the most authentic of all the Christian victories of medi- 
eval Spain, gave a final and deadly blow to the Moslem 
dominion of the Peninsula. "Within a few years of that 
celebrated battle, Granada aJone was subject to the rule 
of Islam. 

It was in the year 1228 that a descendant of the old 
Moorish kings of Saragossa rebelled against the Almohades 
and succeeded in making himself master not merely of 
Granada, but of Cordova, Seville, Algeciras, and even of 
Ceuta, and, obtaining a confirmation of his rights from 
Bagdad, assumed the title of Amir ul Moslemin — Com- 
mander of the Moslems — and Al Mutawakal — the Pro- 
tected of God. 

But a rival was not slow to appear. Mohammed Al 
Ahmar, the Fair or the Euddy, defeated, dethroned, and 
slew Al Mutawakal, and reigned in his stead in Andalusia. 
Despoiled in his turn of most of his possessions by St. Ferdi- 



62 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

nand of Castile, Al Ahmar was fain at lengtli to content 
himself with the rich districts in the extreme south of the 
Peninsula, which are known to fame, wherever the Span- 
ish or the English language is spoken, as the Kingdom of 
Granada. And thus it came to pass that the city on the 
banks of the Darro, the home of the proud and highly cul- 
tivated Syrians of Damascus, the flower of the early Arab 
invaders of Spain, became also the abiding place of the later 
Arab civilization, overmastered year after year, and de- 
stroyed, by the Christian armies ever pressing on to the 
southern sea. Yet, in the middle of the thirteenth cent- 
ury, the flood tide of reconquest had for the moment fairly 
spent itself. The Christians were not strong enough to con- 
quer, and above all they were not numerous enough to oc- 
cupy, the districts that were still peopled by the Moor ; and 
for once a wise and highly cultivated Christian shared the 
supreme power in the Peninsula with a generous and honor- 
able Moslem. Alfonso X. sought not to extend his fron- 
tiers, but to educate his people, not to slaughter his neigh- 
bors, but to give laws to his subjects, not to plunder frontier 
cities, but to make Castile into a kingdom, with a history, 
a civilization, and a language of her own. If the reputa- 
tion of Alfonso is by no means commensurate with his true 
greatness, the statesmanship of Mohammed Al Ahmar, the 
founder of the ever famous Kingdom of Granada, is over- 
shadowed by his undying fame as an architect. Yet is Al 
Ahmar worthy of remembrance as a king and the parent 
of kings in Spain. The loyal friend and ally of his Chris- 
tian neighbor, the prudent administrator of his own domin- 
ions, he collected at his Arab court a great part of the 
wealth, the science, and the intelligence of Spain. His 



MOORISH SPAIN, 63 

empire has long ago been broken up; the Moslem has 
been driven out; there Is no king nor kingdom of Grsr 
nada. But their memory lives in the great palace fortress 
whose red towers still rise over the sparkling Darro, and 
whose fairy chambers are still to be seen in what is, per- 
haps, the most celebrated of the wonder works of the 
master builders of the world. 

After his long and glorious reign >f forty-two years, 
Mohammed the Fair was killed by a fall trom his horse 
near Granada, and was succeeded by his sc a, Mohammed 
II., in the last days of the year 1272. Al Ahmar had ever 
remained at peace with Alfonso X., but his son, taking 
advantage of the king's absence in quest of an empire in 
Germany, sought the assistance of Yusuf , the sovereign <» 
emperor of Morocco, and invaded the Christian frontiers* 

Victory was for some time on the side of the MoorSb 
The Ofbstiliaas were defeated at Ecija in 1276, and their 
leader, tht) Viceroy Don itTunez de Lara, was killed in bat- 
tle, as was also Don Sancho, Infante of Aragon and Arch- 
bishop of Toledo, after thf rout of his army at Martos, neap 
Jaen, on the 21st of October, 1275 ; and the victorious Yusuf 
ravaged Christian Spain to the very gates of Seville. 

In the next year, 1276, the Castillan armies were again 
twice defeated, in February at Alcoy and in the following 
July at Lucena. To add to their troubles, King James of 
Aragon died at Valencia in 1276. Sancho of Castile sought 
to depose his father Alfonso, at Valladolid. All was in 
confusion among the Christians; and had it not been for 
the defection of Yusuf of Morocco, the tide of fortune might 
have turned in favor of Islam. As it was, the African 
monarch not only abandoned his cousin of Gran ida, but 



64 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

he was actually perBuaded to send one hundred thousand 
ducats to his Christian rival at Se'f/ille in 1280. 

The value of this assistance was soon felt. Tarifa was 
taken in 1292, and the progress of the Moor was checked 
forever in Southern Spain. Mohammed II. died in 1302, 
and was succeeded by his son, Mohammed III., who was 
usually considered 1 y the Moslem historians to have been 
the ablest monarch )f his house. But he reigned for only 
seven years, ani he was unable to defend Gibraltar from 
the assaults of his Christian rivals. 

From this time the court of Granada became a sort of 
city of refuge for the disaffected lords and princes of Castile, 
who sometimes, but rarely, prevailed upon their Moslem 
hosts to assist them in expeditions into Christian Spain, but 
who were always welcomed with true Arab hospitality at 
the Moslem c;apital. To record their various intrigues would 
be a vain and unpleasing task. The general course of his- 
tory was hardly affected by passing alliances. The Chris- 
tian pressed on — ^with ever increasing territojy behind him 
—on his road to the southern sea, 

In 1319, Abdul "Walid or Ismail I. of Granada defeated 
and slew Don Pedro ard Don Juan, Infantes of Castile, at 
a place near Granada, still known ae. the Sierra de los In- 
fantes. But no important consequences followed the victory. 

In the reign of Yusuf (1333-54) was fought the great ba ;- 
tie of the Salado (1340), when the Christians, under Alfonso 
XI., were completely successful; and the capitulation of Al- 
geciras three years later deprived the Moslems of an impor- 
tant harbor and seaport. Day by day — almost hour by hour 
— the Christians encroached upon Granada, even while cul- 
tivating the political Iriendship and accepting the private 



MOORISH SPAIN. 65 

hospitality of the Moslem. Their treacherous intervention 
reached its climax in 1362, when Peter the Cruel decoyed 
the King Abu Said, under his royal safe -conduct, to the 
palace at Seville, and slew him with his own hand. 

With Mohammed or Maulai al Aisar, or the Left-handed, 
the affairs of Granada became more intimately connected 
with the serious history of Spain. Al Hayzari, proclaimed 
king in 1423, and dethroned soon after by his cousin, another 
Mohammed, in 1427, sought and found refuge at the court 
of John II., by whose instrumentality he was restored to 
his throne at the Alhambra in 1429. Y'it within four years 
a rival sovereign, Yusuf, had secured the support of the 
fickle Christian, and Muley the Left-handed was forced 
a second time to fly from his capital. Once again, by the 
sudden death of the new usurper, he returned to reign at 
Granada, and once again for the third time he was sup- 
planted by a more fortunate rival, who reigned as Mo- 
hammed IX. for nearly ten year? (1445-64). At the end 
of this period, however, another pretender was dispatched 
from the Christian court, and after much fighting and in- 
trigue, Mohammed ibn Ismail, a nephew ot Maulai or Muley 
the Left-handed, drove out the reigning sovereign and suc- 
ceeded him as Mohammed X. 

Yet were the dominions of this Christian ally unceas- 
ingly ravaged by his Christian neighbors. Gibraltar, Archi- 
dona, and much surrounding jerritory were taken by the 
forces of Henry IV. and his nobles; and a treaty was at 
length concluded in 1464, in which it was agreed that Mo- 
hammed of Granada should hold his kingdom under the 
protection of Castile, and should pay an annual subsidy or 
tribute of twelve thousand gold ducats. It was thus, oa 



66 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

the death, in 1466, of this Mohammed Ismail of Granada, 
that a vexed and harassed throne was inherited by his son 
Muley Abul Hassan, ever famous in history and romance 
as **The old king" — the last independent sovereign of 
Granada. 

Meanwhile, Henry's only daughter Joanna being re- 1 
garded as the fruit of the queen's adultery, he was de- 
posed, but restored after acknowledging as his heiress his 
sister Isabella, who subsequently, through her marriage 
with Ferdinand of Aragon, joined the two most powerful 
of Spanish kingdoms into one yet more powerful State. 

To return now to Mulej' Abul Hassan.* For many years 
after his accession he observed with his Christian neigh- 
bors the treaties Vihat had been made, nor did he take 
advantage of the civil wax which arose by reason of 
Joanna's pretensions to add to the difficidties already 
existing, and in the spring of 1476 sought a formal re- 
newal of the old Treaty of Peace. 

Ferdinand, however, made his acceptance of the king's 
proposal contingent upon the grant of an annual tribute; 
and he sent an envoy to the Moslem court to negotiate 
the terms of payment. But the reply of Abul Hassan 1 
was decisive. *' Steel," said he, "not gold, was what 
Ferdinand should have from Granada!" Disappointed of 
their subsidy, and unprepared for war, the Christian sov- 
ereigns were content to renew the treaty, with a mental 
reservation that as soon as a favorable opportunity should 
present itself they would drive every Moslem not only 
out of Granada, but out of Spain. 

* Muley is an Arabic word meaning **my lord." 



MOORISH SPAIN, 67 

For five years there was peace between Abul Hassan 
and the Catholic sovereigns. The commencement of hos- 
tilities was the capture of Zahara by the Moslems at the 
close of the year 1481; which was followed early in next 
year, 1482, by the conquest of the far more important 
Moorish stronghold of Alhama, not by the troops of Fer- 
dinand and Isabella, but by the followers of Ponce de 
Leon, the celebrated Marquis of Cadiz. Alhama was not 
merely a fortress. It was a treasure-house and a maga- 
zine; and it was but five or six leagues from Granada. 
The town was sacked with the usual horrors. The Mar- 
quis of Cadiz, having made good his position within the 
walls, defied all the attacks of Abul Hassan, and at the 
same time sent messengers to every Christian lord in An- 
dalusia to come to his assistance — to all save one, his 
hereditary enemy, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, chief of 
the great family of the Guzmans. Yet it was this gen- 
erous rival, who, assembling all his chivalry and retain- 
ers, was the first to appear before the walls of Alhama, 
and relieve the Christians from the threatened assault of 
the Moslem. The days of civil discord had passed away 
in Castile; and against united Christendom, Islam could 
not long exist in Spain. 

Meanwhile, Ferdinand, seeing that war had finally 
broken out, started from Medina del Campo, and marched 
with all speed to Cordova, where he was joined by Isa- 
bella early in April, 1482. The Inquisition had now been 
for over a year in full blast at Seville. The fires of per- 
secutioil had been fairly lighted. The reign of bigotry 
had begun, and tha king and queen were encouraged to 
proceed from the plunder of the Jews or New Christians 



68 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

to the plunder of the Moslems. Ferdinand accordingly 
repaired in person to Alhama, with a large train of prel- 
ates and ecclesiastics of lower degree. The city was sol- 
emnly purified. Three mosques were consecrated by the 
Cardinal of Spain for Christian worship. Bells, crosses, 
plate, altar cloths were furnished without stint; and Al- 
hama having been thus restored to civilization, Ferdinand 
descended upon the fruitful valley or Vega of Granada, 
destroyed the crops, cut down the fruit trees, uprooted 
the vines, and, without having encountered a single 
armed enemy in the course of his crusade, returned in 
triumph to Cordova. A more arduous enterprise in the 
following July was not attended with the same success, 
when Ferdinand attacked the important town of Loja, 
and was repulsed with great loss of Christian life. An 
expedition against Malaga, later in the year, undertaken 
by Alfonso de Cardenas, Grand Master of Santiago, and 
the Marquis of Cadiz, was even more disastrous, for a 
small body of Moors in the mountain defiles of the Axar- 
quia fell upon the Christian marauders, and no less than 
four hundred "persons of quality" are said to have per- 
ished in the retreat, including thirty commanders of the 
great military order of Santiago. The Grand Master, 
the Marquis of Cadiz, and Don Alfonso de Aguilar es- 
caped as by a miracle, and the survivors straggled into 
Loja and Antequera and Malaga, leaving Abul Hassan 
and his brother Al Zagal, or the Valiant, with all the 
honors of war. 

But the successes of the Moor in the field was more 
than counterbalanced by treason in the palace. By Zo- 
raya, a lady of Christian ancestry, Muley Abul Hassan 



MOORISH SPAIN. 69 

had a son, Abu Abdallali, who has earned a sad notoriety 
under the more familiar name of Boabdil. Jealous of some 
rival, or ambitious of greater power, the Sultana and her 
son intrigued against their sovereign, and having escaped 
from the State prison, in which they were at first pru- 
dently confined, raised the standard of revolt, and com- 
pelled Abul Hassan, who was thenceforth more usually 
spoken of as the Old King, to seek refuge on the sea- 
coast at Malaga. 

Boabdil, jealous of the success of his father and his 
uncle at Loja and in the Axarquia, and anxious to con- 
firm his power by some striking victory over the Chris- 
tians, took the field and confronted the forces of the Count 
of Cabra, near Lucena. The battle was hotly contested, 
but victory remained with the Christians. Ali Atar, the 
bravest of the Moorish generals, was slain by the hand of 
Alfonso de Aguilar, and Boabdil himself was taken prisoner 
by a common soldier, Hurtado by name, and fell into the 
hands of the victorious Count of Cabra. The captivity of 
Boabdil, the Little King, el Rey Chico, as he was called by 
the Castilians, was the turning point in the history of the 
Moorish dominion in Spain. Released on payment of a 
magnificent ransom provided by his mother Zoraya, and 
bound to his Christian captors by a humiliating treaty, he 
returned to Granada, disgraced and dishonored, as the ally 
of the enemies of his country. Driven out of the capital by 
the forces of his father, who had returned to occupy the 
great palace-fortress of Alhambra, Boabdil and his mother 
retired to Almeria, the second city in the kingdom; and the 
whole country was distracted by civil war. 

Yet for four years the Castilians refrained from any im- 



70 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

portant expedition against Granada. Their tactics were 
rather those of Scipio at Numantia. For Delay was all 
in favor of Disintegration. 

Yet the merciless devastation of fields and crops was 
carried on with systematic and dreadful completeness. 
Thirty thousand destroyers of peaceful homesteads, grana- 
ries, farmhouses, and mills, were constantly at work, and 
ere long there was scarce a vineyard or an oliveyard, scarce 
an orchard or an orange-grove existing within reach of the 
Christian borders. Under cover of the treaty with Boabdil, 
this devilish enginery of destruction was steadily pushed 
forward, while the old king and his more vigorous brother 
El Zagal were prevented by domestic treason from making 
any effectual defense of their fatherland. Some of the bor- 
der towns, moreover, fell into the hands of the Christians, 
and many forays were undertaken which produced rich 
booty for the marauders. Ferdinand in the meantime oc- 
cupied himself rather with the affairs of the Inquisition 
and of foreign policy, while Isabella was personally super- 
intending the enormous preparations for a final attack on 
Granada. Artillery was cast in large quantities, and ar- 
tificers imported from France and Italy; large stores of 
ammunition were procured from Flanders. Nothing was 
hurried; nothing was spared; nothing was forgotten by 
Isabella. A camp hospital, the first, it is said, in the his- 
tory of warfare, was instituted by the queen, whose energy 
was indefatigable, whose powers of organization were bound- 
less, and whose determination was infiexible. To represent 
her as a tender and timid princess is to turn her true great- 
ness into ridicule. But her vigor, her prudence, and her 
perseverance are beyond the vulgar praise of history. 



MOORISH SPAIN, 71 

Meanwhile, Granada was gradually withering away. 
The '* pomegranate," as Ferdinand had foreseen and fore- 
told, was losing one by one the seeds of which the rich 
and lovely fruit had once been all compact. The old king, 
defeated but not disgraced, blind, infirm, and unfortunate, 
was succeeded too late by his more capable brother. El 
Zagal, a gallant warrior, a skillful commander, and a reso- 
lute ruler. But if *Hhe valiant one" might hardly have 
held his own against the enormous resources of the 
Christians in Europe, he was powerless against the com- 
bination of foreign vigor and domestic treachery. The 
true conqueror of Granada is Boabdil, the rebel and the 
traitor, who has been euphemistically surnamed the Un- 
lucky (El Zogoibi). Innocent, perchance, of the massacre 
of the brave Abencerrages, he is guilty of the blood of 
his country. 

The capture of Yelez Malaga by Ferdinand, already well 
supplied with a powerful train of artillery, in April, 1487 — 
while El Zagal was fighting for his life against Boabdil in 
Granada — was soon followed by the reduction, after a most 
heroic defense, of the far more important city of Malaga in 
August, 1487. But the heroism of the Moslem woke no 
generous echo in the hearts of either Ferdinand or Isabella. 
The entire population of the captured city, men, women, 
and children — some fifteen thousand souls — were reduced 
to slavery, and distributed not only over Spain, but over 
Europe. 

A hundred choice warriors were sent as a gift to the 
Pope. Fifty of the most beautiful girls were presented to 
the Queen of N"aples, thirty more to the Queen of Portugal, 
others to the ladies of her court, and the residue of both 



72 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

sexes were portioned off among the nobles, the knights, and 
the common soldiers of the army, according to their rank 
and influence. 

For the Jews and renegades a more dreadful doom was 
reserved; and the flames in which they perished were, in 
the words of a contemporary ecclesiastic, "the illumina- 
tions most grateful to the Catholic piety of Ferdinand and 
Isabella." The town was repeopled by Christian immi- 
grants, to whom the lands and houses of the Moslem own- 
ers were granted with royal liberality by the victors. The 
fall of Malaga, the second seaport and the third city of the 
kingdom of Granada, was a grievous loss to the Moors; 
and the Christian blockade was drawn closer both by land 
and by sea. Yet an invasion of the eastern provinces, im- 
dertaken by Ferdinand himself in 1488, was repulsed by El 
Zagal; and the Christian army was disbanded as usual at 
the close of the year, without having extended the Christian 
dominions. 

But in the spring of 1489 greater efforts were made. 
The Castilians sat down before the town of Baza, not far 
from Jaen, and after a siege which lasted until the follow- 
ing December, the city surrendered, not, as in the case of 
Malaga, without conditions, but upon honorable terms of 
capitulation, which the assailants, who had only been pre- 
vented by the arrival of Isabella from raising the siege, 
were heartily glad to accept. The fall of Baza was of more 
than passing importance, for it was followed by the capitu- 
lation of Almeria, the second city in the kingdom, and by 
the submission of El Zagal, who renounced as hopeless the 
double task of fighting against his nephew at the Alhambra, 
and resisting the Christian sovereigns who had already over- 



MOORISH SFAJTf, 73 

run his borders. The fallen monarch passed over to Africa, 
where he died in indigence and misery, the last of the great 
Moslem rulers of Spain. 

In the spring of 1490, Ferdinand, already master of the 
greater part of the Moorish kingdom, sent a formal sum- 
mons to his bondsman, Boabdil, to surrender to him the 
city of Granada ; and that wretched and most foolish traitor, 
who had refrained from action when action might have 
saved his country, now defied the victorious Christians, 
when his defiance could only lead to further suffering and 
greater disaster.. 

Throughout the summer of 1490, Ferdinand, in per- 
son, devoted himself to the odious task of the devasta- 
tion of the entire Vega of Granada, and the depopula- 
tion of the town of Guadix. But in the spring of the 
next year, Isabella, who was ever the life and soul of 
the war, took up her position within six miles of the city, 
and pitched her camp at Ojos de Huescar at the very 
gate of Granada. 

And here was found assembled, not only all the best 
blood of Castile, but volunteers and mercenary troops from 
various countries in Europe. France, England, Italy, and 
even Germany, each provided their contingent; and a body 
of Swiss soldiers of fortune showed the gallant cavaliers of 
the Christian army the power and the value of a well dis- 
ciplined infantry. Among the foreigners who had come 
over to Spain in 1486 was an English lord, the Earl of 
Eivers, known by the Spaniards as El Conde de Escalas, 
from his family name of Scales, whose magnificence at- 
tracted the admiration of all, even at the magnificent 
court of Isabella. 



74 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

But the destruction of Granada was not brought about 
by these gilded strangers, nor even by the brilliant knights 
and nobles of Spain. It was not due to skillful engineeFS 
nor to irresistible commanders. The gates were opened by 
no victory. The walls were scaled by no assault. The 
Christian success was due to the patient determination of 
Isabella, to the decay and disintegration of the Moorish 
Commonwealth, and, to some extent, to the skillful nego- 
tiation and diplomatic astuteness of a young soldier whose 
early influence upon the fortunes of Spain have been over- 
shadowed by the greatness of his later achievements. 

For among all the splendid knights and nobles who as- 
sembled in the camp of Isabella, the chroniclers wellnigh 
overlooked a gay cavalier of modest fortune, the younger 
brother of Alfonso de Aguilar, distinguished rather as a 
fop than a warrior — Gonsalvo Hernandez of Cordova, 
whose fame was destined to eclipse that of all his com- 
panions in arms, and who has earned an undying repu- 
tation in the history of three countries as *'The Great 
Captain." 

The life of Gonsalvo de Cordova is interesting as being 
the history of a brave soldier and an accomplished general, 
who flourished at a very important period of the history of 
Europe. But it is further and much more interesting as 
being the history of a man who united in himself many 
of the characteristics of ancient and of modern times. His 
bravery was the bravery of an old Castilian knight, and 
although he had many splendid rivals, he was pronounced 
by common consent to be their superior. Yet his indi- 
vidual courage was the least remarkable of his qualities. 
He was a general, such as the Western world had not 



MOORISH SPAIN, 76 

known for a thousand years, and he was the first diplo- 
matist of modern Europe. In personal valor, in knightly 
courtesy, in brave display, he was of his own time. In 
astute generalship, and in still more astute diplomacy, 
he may be said to have inaugurated a new era; and 
although greater commanders have existed after him, as 
well as before him, he will always be known as "The 
Great Captain." 

The conquest of Granada marks an epoch, not only in 
the history of Spain, but in the history of Europe; and 
Gonsalvo was the hero of Granada. The expedition of 
Charles VIII. into Italy is a subject of almost romantic 
interest, very nearly preferred by Gibbon to his own im- 
mortal theme ; and Gonsalvo in Italy was the admired of 
all French and Italian admirers. The succeeding expedi- 
tion of Louis XII. was scarcely less interesting, and the 
part played by Gonsalvo was even more remarkable. At 
his birth artillery was almost unknown. At his death it 
had become the most formidable arm of offense; it had 
revolutionized the rules and manner of warfare; and it 
was employed by The Great Captain in both his Italian 
campaigns with marked skill and success. 

Gonsalvo Hernandez was bom at Montilla, near Cor- 
dova, in 1453, of the noble and ancient family of the 
Aguilars. After a boyhood and youth devoted, not only 
to every manly sport and pursuit, and to the practice of 
arms, but to the study of letters, and more especially 
of the Arabic language, he made his first appearance in 
serious warfare on the field of Olmedo, fighting under 
the banner of the Marquis of Villena. On the death of 
Prince Alfonso, Gonsalvo returned to Cordova. His 



70 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

father had ah-eady died; and according to the Spanish 
law of primogeniture the whole of the rich estates of the 
family of Aguilar passed, on the death of Don Pedro, 
to his eldest son Alfonso, while nothing but a little per- 
sonal property, a great name, a fine person, and "the 
hope of what he might gain by his good fortune or his 
valor" was inherited by his younger brother. 

Cordova was obviously too small a field for Gonsalvo 
de Aguilar; and in the course of the eventful year 1474, 
having just arrived at man's estate, he proceeded to Se- 
govia, and distinguished himself among the young nobles 
who crowded to the Court of Isabella, by his prowess at 
tournaments and all warlike games and exercises; and 
he soon became celebrated for his personal beauty as well 
as for his valor, distinguished for his fascinating man- 
nei*s, and, above all, by an eloquence rarely found in a 
young soldier of two and twenty. He was generally 
known as ''the Prince of the Youth''; and he supported 
the character by an almost royal liberality and osten- 
t^atious expenditure entirely incompatible with his modeet 
fortune. 

In the war of succession between Isabella and her 
niece, Gonsalvo served under Alfonso de Cardenas, Grand 
Master of Santiago, in command of a troop of one hun- 
dred and twenty horsemen; and he particularly distin- 
guished himself at the battle of Albuera. 

And now, in the camp before Granada, he was well 
pleased once more to sun himself in the smiles of his 
queen and patroness, whose presence in the camp inspired 
every soldier with enthusiasm. Isabella appeared on the 
field superbly mounted and dressed in complete armor, 



MOORISH SPAIN 77 

and continually visited the different quarters, and held 
reviews pi. the troops. On one occasion she expressed a 
desire to have a nearer view of the city, and a picked 
body of men, among whom was Gonsalvo de Cordova, 
commanded by the Marquis Duke of Cadiz, escorted her 
to the little village of Zubia, within a short distance 
of Granada. The citizens, indignant at the near ap- 
proach of so small a force, sallied out and attacked 
them. The Christians, however, stood their ground so 
bravely, and performed such prodigies of valor imder the 
very eyes of Isabella herself, that no less than two 
"thousand Moslems are said to have fallen in that memor- 
able affray. 

It happened one night, about the middle of July, that 
the drapery of the tent or pavilion in which Isabella was 
lodged took fire, and the conflagration was not extin- 
guished until several of the neighboring tents had been 
consumed. The queen and her attendants escaped un- 
hurt, but a general consternation prevailed throughout 
the camp, until it was discovered that no more seri- 
ous loss had been experienced than that of the queen's 
wardrobe. 

Gonsalvo, however, who on more than one occasion 
showed himself at least as practical a courtier as Sir 
"Walter Raleigh, immediately sent an express to Illora, 
and obtained such a supply of fine clothes from his wife. 
Dona Maria Manrique, that the queen herself was amazed, 
as much at their magnificence as at the rapidity with 
which they had been obtained. 

But this incident led to even more important results 
than the amiable pillage of Dona Maria's wardrobe, for 



78 HISTORY OF SPAJJSl. 

in order to guard against a similar disaster, as well as to 
provide comfortable winter quarters for the troops, Isa- 
bella determined to construct a sufficient number of 
houses of solid masonry to provide quarters for the 
besieging army, a design which was carried out in less 
than three months. This martial and Christian town, 
which received the appropriate name of Santa Fe, may 
be still seen by the traveler in the Vega of Granada, 
and is pointed out by good Catholics as the only town 
in Andcdusia that has never been contaminated by the 
Moslem. 

But in spite of Ihe attractions of all these feats of arms 
and exhibitions of magnificence, and of all the personal 
display and rash adventure which savors so much more 
of medieval chivalry than of modem warfare, Gk>nsalvo 
was more seriously engaged in the schemes and negotia- 
tions which contributed almost as mudi as the prowess 
of the Christian arms to the fall of Granada. He had 
spies everywhere. He knew what was going on in Gra- 
nada better than BoabdiL He knew what was going on 
in the camp better than Ferdinand. His familiarity with 
Arabic enabled him to maintain secret communications 
with recreant Moors, without the dangerous intervention 
of an interpreter. He kept up constant communications 
with niora, and having obtained the allegiance or friend- 
ship of the Moorish chief, Ali Atar, he gained possession 
of the neighboring fortress of Mondejar. He sent pres- 
ents, in truly Oriental style, to many of the Moorish lead- 
ers in Granada who favored the party of Boabdil, and he 
was at length chosen by Isabella as the most proper per- 
son to conduct the negotiations that led to the treaty of 



MOORISH SPAIN, 79 

capitulation, which was signed on the 26th of November, 
1491. 

The nature and the effect of this Convention are well 
known. The triumphal entry of the Christians into the 
old Moslem capital; "the last sigh of the Moor," and the 
fsetting up of the Cross in the palace-citadel of Alhambra, 
not only form one of the most glowing pages in the ro- 
mance of history, but they mark an epoch in the annak 
of the world. 



CHAPTER V 

HE INQUISITIOXr 

fOBQUEMADA A19B ISABELLA-THE NEW TBIBUKAL— THE 
PENALTY OF UNSOUND OPINIONS -THREE CENT- 
URIES OF SHAME 

The history of Spain assmned a new phase when, at the 
fall of Qranada, the attention of potentates and people ceased 
to be absorbed by the excitement of a great n^gious war. 
Then the past and the romance of it ended and ihe history 
of modem Spain began. 

Before proceeding with the latter, a name and a tribunal 
detain attentkm. The one is Torquemada. The other is the 
InqoisitioQ. Bvatke has desmbed th^si belli, as fdlows: 

The Inqoisitioii, estabUshed in Italy l^ Honorhis IH. in 
1881, and in France l^ St Louis in 1833, was formally in« 
troduced into Spain by Gregory IX. in 1235, by a Bescript 
of April dO^ addressed to Hongrin, Archlnshc^Adminis- 
trator of Tarragona, confirming and exfdaining pceirioas 
Brief and Bulls upon the subject ci the repression of her- 
BBy'j and prescribing the issue ci certain Instructions idudi 
had been prepared at the desire of his holiness by a Span* 
ish saint, the Dominican Raymond of Penaf ort From this 
tune forward, Bulls on the subject of the Inquisition into 
heresy were frequently issued; and the followers cC Dominic 

w^e ever the trusted agents of the Holy Sea 

(80) 



THE INQUISITION. 81 

The first suggestion of the serious introduction of the 
Tribunal of the Holy Office into Castile, at the end of the 
fifteenth century, is said to have come from Sicily. An 
Italian friar bearing the suggestive name of Dei Barberi, 
Inquisitor-general at Messina, paid a visit to his sovereign 
Ferdinand at Seville in 1477, in order to procure the con- 
firmation of a privilege accorded to the Sicilian Dominicans 
by the Emperor Frederic II., in 1233, by virtue of which 
the Inquisitors entered into possession of one-third of the 
goods of the heretic whom they condemned. This danger- 
ous charter was confirmed in due course by Ferdinand on 
the 2d of September, 1477, and by Isabella on the 18th of 
October ; and very little argument was required on the part 
of the gratified envoy to convince his sovereign of the vari- 
ous temporal and spiritual advantages that would follow 
the introduction of the Tribunal, that had so long existed 
in an undeveloped form in Sicily and in Aragon, into the 
dominions of his pious consort, Isabella of Castile. 

In the middle of the year 1480 there was as yet no court 
of the Holy Inquisition established in Spain. At length, 
pressed by the Papal Nuncio, by the Dominicans, by her 
confessor, most of all by her husband, Isabella gave her 
consent; and at length, in August, 1483, the Inquisition 
was established as a permanent tribunal. Tomas de Tor- 
quemada was appointed Inquisitor-general of both Castile 
and Aragon. Subordinate tribunals were constituted; new 
and more stringent regulations were made; the victims 
smoked from day to day on the great stone altar of the 
Quemadero. 

The life of Tomas de Torquemada is the history of con- 
temporary Spain. Bom of a noble family, already distin- 



82 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

guished in the Church by the reputation of the cardinal his 
uncle, Tomas early assumed the habit of a Dominican, and 
was in course of time appointed prior of an important mon- 
astery at Segovia, and confessor to the young Princess Isa- 
bella. His influence upon that royal lady was naturally 
great; his piety pleased her; his austerity affected her; 
and his powerful will directed, if it could not subdue, a 
will as powerful as his own. Brought up far away from 
a court whose frivolities had no charm for her, and where, 
under any circumstances, she would have been considered 
as a rival if not a pretender, the counsels of her confessor, 
both sacred and secular, were the most authoritative that 
she could expect to obtain. It has been constantly asserted 
that the friar obtained from the princess a promise that, 
in the event of her elevation to the throne of Castile, she 
would devote herself to the destruction of heretics and the 
increase of the power of the Church. Such a promise would 
have been but one of many which such a confessor would 
have obtained from such a penitent, and would have been 
but the natural result of his teaching. Nor is it surprising 
that in the intrigues that preceded the death of Henry IV., 
and the War of Succession that inamediately followed it, 
the whole influence of the priesthood should have been cast 
on the side of Isabella and against her niece Joanna. For 
ten years, says the biographer of his Order, the skillful 
hand of Torquemada cultivated the intellect of Isabella; 
and in due course the propitious marriage with Ferdinand 
of Aragon, far from removing his pupil from his sacerdotal 
influence, brought him a new and an equally illustrious 
penitent. Torquemada became the confessor oi the king 
as well as of the queen. 



THE JNQUISITIon 88 

If the establishment of the Inquisition was the falfiU- 
ment of Isabella's vow, and the realization of the aspira* 
tions of her tutor, his appointment as Inquisitor-general, 
although it necessitated the choice o£ another confessor, 
did not by any means withdraw him from his old sphere 
of influence. He ceased not to preach the destruction of tbe 
Moslem, even as he was employed about the destructloii of 
the Jew; and if Isabella was the active patroness of Hie 
war in Granada, there was a darker spirit behind the throne^ 
ever preaching the sacred duty of the slaughter of the InSdel 
and the heretic of every race and nation. 

Torquemada was at once a politician and an enthnsiasl; 
rigid, austere, uncompromising; miboimded in his ambitfon, 
yet content to sacrifice himself to the cause that made him 
what he was. His moral superiority to the Innocents and 
Alexanders at Home, his intellectual superiority to the Car* 
rillos and the fighting bishops of Spain, gave him that 
enormous influence over both queen and king which his 
consuming bigotry and his relentless tenacity of purpose 
induced him to use with such dreadful effect. Aggressive 
even in his profession of humility, Tcarqtiemada was Inso* 
lent, not only to his unhappy victims, but to his colleagues, 
to his sovereigns, to his Hoi f Father at Borne. He was, 
perhaps, the only man in Surope who was more masterfid 
than Isabella, more bloodthirsty than Alexand^; a£id be 
was able to impose his own will on both queen and pope. 
Kejecting in his proud humility every offer of the miter, 
he asserted and maintained his ecclesiastical supr^icaof 
even over the Primate of Spain. Attended by a body- 
guard of noble youths who were glad to secure at onoe 
the favor of the queen and immunity from ecclesiastical 



84 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

censure by assuming the habit of the Familiars of the 
Holy Office, the great destroyer lived in daily dread of 
the hand of the assassin. 

Fifty horsemen and two hundred foot-guards always 
attended him. Nor was it deemed inconsistent with the 
purity of his own religious faith that he should carry about 
with him a talisman, in the shape of the horn of some 
strange animal, invested with the mysterious power of 
preventing the action of poison. 

On the death of Torquemada in September, 1498, Don 
Diego Deza was promoted to the office of Inquisitor-general 
ci Spair Yet the activity of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal 
was rather increased than diminished by the change of 
masters, and an attempt was made soon afterward to ex- 
tend its operations to Naples. But Qonsalvo de Cordova, 
who was then acting as viceroy, took upon himself to dis- 
regard not only the demands of the Inquisitors, but the 
orders of Ferdinand (June 30, 1504), and to postpone the 
introduction of the new tribunal into the country that he 
80 wisely and so liberally governed. After the recall of 
his great representative, some six years later, Ferdinand 
himself made another attempt to establish the hated Tri- 
bunal in Italy in 1510. But even Ferdinand did not pre- 
vail; and Naples retained the happy immunity which it 
owed to the Great Captain. 

If no error is more gross than to suppose that the estab- 
lishment of the Inquisition was due to popular feeling in 
Spain, it is almost equally false to assert that it was the 
work of the contemporary popes. Rome was bad enough 
at the end of the fifteenth century ; but her vast load of 
wickedness need not be increased by the burden of sins 



THE INQUISITION. 86 

that are not hep own. The everlasting shame of the Span- 
ish Inquisition is that of the Catholic kings. It is not diffi- 
cult to understand why the poor and rapacious Ferdinand 
of Aragon should welcome the establishment of an instru- 
ment of extortion which placed at his disposal the accumu- 
lated savings of the richest citizens of Castile. It is yet 
easier to comprehend that Isabella, who was not of a tem- 
per to brook resistance to authority in Church or State, 
should have consented to what her husband so earnestly 
desired. The queen, moreover, was at least sincerely relig- 
ious, after the fashion of the day ; and was constrained to 
follow the dictates of her confessor in matters judged by 
him to be within his spiritual jurisdiction, even while she 
was, as a civil ruler, withstanding the Pope himself on 
matters of temporal sovereignty. It is the height of folly 
to brand Isabella as a hypocrite, because we are unable to 
follow the workings of a medieval mind, or to appreciate 
the curious religious temper — by no means confined to the 
men and women of the fifteenth century — ^that can permit 
or compel the same person to be devoted to Popery and 
to be at war with the Pope, and find in the punctilious 
observance of ceremonial duty excuse or encouragement 
for the gratification of any vice and the commission of 
any crime. But that the nobility and people of Castile 
should have permitted the crown to impose upon them 
a foreign and an ecclesiastical despotism, is at first sight 
much harder to understand. No one reason, but an 
unhappy combination of causes, may perhaps be found 
to explain it. 

The influence of the queen was great. Respected as 
well as feared by the nobles, she was long admired and 



86 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

beloved by the mass of the people. * The great success of 
her administration, which was apparent even by the end 
of 1480 ; her repression of the nobility ; her studied respect 
for the Cortes; all these things predisposed the Castilians, 
who had so long suffered under weak and unworthy sov- 
ereigns, to trust themselves not only to the justice but to 
the wisdom of the queen. The influence of the clergy, if 
not so great as it was in France or Italy, was no doubt 
considerable, and, as a rule, though not always, it was 
cast on the side of the Inquisition. Last and most un- 
happy reason of all, the nobility and the people were 
divided; and, if not actually hostile, were at least ever 
at variance in Castile. 

The first efforts of the new tribunal, too, were directed 
either against the converted Jews, of whose prosperity the 
Christians were already jealous, and for whose interested 
tergiversations no one could feel any respect; or against 
the more or less converted Moslems, toward whom their 
neighbors still maintained a certain hereditary antipathy. 
The New Christians alone were to be haled before the new 
tribunal. The Old Christians might trust in the queen, if 



'^ Certainly in 1480, possibly not five-and-twenty years 
later. From curious criminal proceedings instituted against 
the Corregidor of Medina del Campo, we learn that that 
high judicial authority had not hesitated to declare that 
the soul of Isabella had gone direct to hell for her cruel 
oppression of her subjects, and that King Ferdinand was 
a thief and a robber, and that all the people round Medina 
and Valladolid, where the queen was best known, had 
formed the same judgment of her. *'Arch. Gen. Siman- 
cas," Estado, Legajo i., f. 192; "Calendar of State Papers" 
(Spain), Supplement to i. and ii. (1868), p. 37. 



THE INQUISITION. 9i 

not in their own irreproachable lineage, to protect them 
from hurt or harm. 

The number of subordinate or subsidiary tribunals of 
the Holy Office was at first only four; established at Se- 
ville, Cordova, Jaen, and Ciudad Real. The number was 
gradually increased, during the reign of the Catholic kings, 
to thirteen; and over all these Ferdinand erected, in 1483, 
a court of supervision under the name of the Council of the 
Supreme, consisting of the Grand Inquisitor as President, 
and three other subordinate ecclesiastics, well disposed to 
the crown, and ready to guard the royal interests in con- 
fiscated property. 

One of the first duties of this tremendous OouncH was 
the preparation of a code of rules or Instructions, based 
upon the Inquisitor's Manual of Eymeric, which had been 
promulgated in Aragon in the fourteenth century. The 
new work was promptly and thoroughly done; and twenty- 
eight comprehensive sections left but little to be provided 
for in the future. 

The prosecution of unorthodox Spanish bishops by Tor- 
quemada on the ground of the supposed backslidings of 
their respective fathers is sufficiently characteristic of the 
methods of the Inquisition to be worthy of a passing no- 
tice. Davila, bishop of Segovia, and Aranda, bishop of 
Calahorra, were the sons of Jews who had been converted 
and baptized by St. Yincent Ferrer. No suspicion existed 
as to the orthodoxy of the prelates, both of whom were 
men distinguished for their learning and their piety. But 
it was suggested that their fathers had relapsed into Juda- 
ism before they died. They had each, indeed, left consider- 
able fortunes behind them : and it was sought to exhume 



88 HISTORY OF SPAI]% 

and burn their mortal remains, and to declare the property 
— long in the enjoyment of their heirs and successors — for- 
feited to the crown; and, in spite of a brief of Innocent 
VIII., of the 25th of September, 1487, the attempt was 
made by the Spanish Inquisitors. Both prelates sought 
refuge and protection by personal recourse to Rome (1490). 
Bishop Davila, in spite of the urgent remonstrances of Isa- 
bella herself, ultimately secured the protection of Alexander 
VI. and was invested with additional dignities and honors. 
Bishop Aranda was less fortunate. He was stripped of his 
office and possessions, and died a prisoner in the castle of 
St. Angelo in 1497. 

It was not only living or dying heretics who paid the 
penalty of their unsound opinions. Men long dead, if they 
were represented by rich descendants, were cited before the 
Tribunal, judged, condenmed, and the lands and goods that 
had descended to their heirs passed into the coffers of the 
Catholic kings. The scandal was so great that Isabella 
actually wrote to the Bishop of Segovia to defend herself 
against an accusation that no one had ever presumed to 
formulate. "I have," said the queen, "caused great ca- 
lamities, I have depopulated towns and provinces and king- 
doms, for the love of Christ and of His Holy Mother, but 
I have never touched a maravedi of confiscated property; 
and I have employed the money in educating and dower- 
ing the children of the condemned." This strange apology, 
which seems to have to some extent imposed upon Prescott, 
is shown by more recent examination of the State papers to 
be a most deliberate and daring falsehood, and would go 
far to justify the suggestion of Bergenroth that if Ferdi- 
nand never scrupled to tell direct untruths and make false 



THE INQUISITION. 89 

promises whenever he thought it expedient, Queen Isabella 
excelled her husband in *' disregard of veracity." 

If the Holy Office had existed in Aragon in an undevel- 
oped state from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, and 
if it was actually introduced into Castile at the suggestion of 
an Inquistor of the Aragonese island of Sicily, the old inde- 
pendence of the inhabitants once more asserted itself when 
the time arrived for the introduction of the brand-new Cas- 
tilian Tribunal into the old kingdom that is watered by the 
Ebro. Saragossa, indeed, may be nearer to Rome than To- 
ledo; but the Catalan has ever been less submissive than 
his brother or cousin in Castile; less obedient to authority; 
more impatient of royal and ecclesiastical oppression. Yet 
Aragon, which had defied Innocent at Muret, and van- 
quished Martin at Gerona, was no match for the inquisi- 
tors of Ferdinand the Catholic. The Inquisition, as we 
have seen, had once before been established in Aragon; 
but in one most important particular the new institution 
differed from the old. In former days, even in the rare 
cases when the heretic paid the penalty of his heterodoxy 
with his life, his property passed to his heirs. The ecclesi- 
astical tribunal of Ferdinand was not only more efficient 
in the matter of burning or otherwise disposing of accused 
persons; but the property of all doubtful Catholics, even 
of those who were graciously permitted to live after their 
trial, was absolutely forfeit to the crown. And the num- 
ber of rich men, not only converted Jews but prosperous 
Christians, whose orthodoxy failed to come up to the new 
standard, was even in those days considered remarkable. 

Ferdinand at all times hated popular assemblies. He 
spent the gjreater part of his time in Castile; and he saw 



90 B18T0RY OF SPAIN, 

as little as possible of the people of Aragon. But in April, 

1484, he smnmoned a Cortes at Saragossa, and decreed by 
royal ordinance the establishment of the new tribunal. The 
old constitutional spirit of the Aragonese seems to have 
evaporated; and a degenerate justiciary was found to 
swear to support the jurisdiction of the Inquisitors. Yet 
envoys and delegates of the Commons of Aragon were dis- 
patched to Castile, whither Ferdinand had promptly retired, 
and also to Home, to remonstrate against the new Institu- 
tion, and more especially against the new provisions for the 
forfeiture of the property of the convicted. If these provis- 
ions, contrary to the laws of Aragon, were repealed or sus- 
pended, the deputies '^were persuaded,'* and there was a 
grim humor in the suggestion, ^Hbat the Tribunal itself 
would soon cease to exist." 

But the repression of heresy was far too profitable an 
undertaking to be lightly abandoned ; nor was Ferdinand 
of Aragon the man to abandon it; and the envoys returned 
from an unsuccessful mission to Valladolid to find a Quema- 
dero already blazing at Saragossa. 

Yet the Aragonese were not at once reduced to subjec- 
tion. A popular conspiracy led to the assassination of the 
Inquisitor-general, Pedro de Arbues, in spite of his steel 
cap and coat of mail, as he stood one day at matins in the 
Cathedral of Saragossa (16th September, 1457); but this 
daring crime served only to enrage Ferdinand and to 
strengthen the power of the Inquisition. A most rigorous 
and indefatigable inquiry, which was extended from Sara- 
gossa into everi'" part of Aragon, was at once imdertaken ; 
and an immense number of victims, chosen not only from 
among the people, but from almost every noble family in 



THE INQUISITION W 

Aragon, if it did not appease the vengeance of the Inquisi- 
tors, gratified at least the avarice of Ferdinand. Among 
the accused, indeed, was Don Jayme of Navarre, a nephew 
of the King of Aragon — a son of Eleanor, queen of llTa- 
varre, and her husband, Gaston de Foix — who was actually 
arrested and imprisoned by the Holy Office; and discharged 
only after having done public penance, as convicted of hav- 
ing in some way sympathized with the assassination of 
Arbues. But it may be noted that the young prince was 
finything but a favorite with his uncle, to whom this bit of 
ecclesiastical discipline was no doubt very gratifying. 

But it was not only at Saragossa that opposition was 
offered to the establishment of the new Tribunal. In every 
part of Aragon and of Valencia; at Lerida, at Teruel, at 
Barcelona, the people rose against this new exhibition of 
royal and priestly tyranny. And it was not for fully two 
years, and after the adoption of the most savage measures 
of repression both royal and ecclesiastical, that the Inquisi- 
tion was finally accepted in the kingdom of Aragon, and 
that Torquemada, fortified by no less than two special Bulls, 
made his triumphal entry as Inquisitor-general into Bar* 
celona on the 27th of October, 1488. 

Among all the tens of thousands of innocent persons 
who were tortured and done to death by the Inquisition 
in Spain, it is instructive to turn to the record of one man 
at least who broke through the meshes of the ecclesiastical 
net that was spread abroad in the country; for the mode 
of his escape is sufficiently instructive. Ready money at 
command, but not exposed to seizure, was the sole shield 
and safeguard against the assaults of Church and State. 
Don Alfonso de la Caballeria was a Jew by race, and a 



93 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

man who was actually concerned in the murder of the In- 
quisitor Arbues; but his great wealth enabled him to pur- 
chase not only one but two Briefis from Rome, and to secure 
the further favor of Ferdinand. He was accused and prose- 
cuted in vain by the Holy Office of Aragon. He not only 
escaped with his life, but he rose to a high position in the 
State, and eventually mingled his Jewish and heretic blood 
with that of royalty itself. 

Yarious attempts were made by the CommcHis of Ara- 
gon to abate the powers of the Inquisition; and at the 
Cortes of Monzon, in 1510, so vigorous a remonstrance was 
addressed to Ferdinand that he was miable to do more than 
avoid a decision, by a postpon^n^it on the ground of desir- 
ing fuller information; and two years later, at the same 
place, he was compelled to sanction a declaration op ordi* 
nance, by which the authority assumed by the Holy Office, 
in defiance of the Constitution of Aragon, was specifically 
declared to be illegal; and the king swore to abolish the 
privileges and jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Within a 
few months, however, he caused himself to be absolved 
from this oath by a Papal Brief; and the Inquisition re- 
mained unreformed and trimnphant. But the Aragonese 
had not yet entirely lost their independence, and a popular 
rising compelled the king not only to renounce the Brief, 
so lately received, but to solicit from the Pope a Bull (May 
12, 1515), exonerating him from so doing, and calling upon 
all men, lay and ecclesiastical, to maintain the authority of 
the Cortes. Aragon was satisfied. And the people enjoyed 
for a season the blessings of comparative inamunity from 
persecution. 

To recall the manifold horrors of the actual working of 



THE INQUISITION. 93 

the Inquisition in Spain would be a painful and an odious 
task. To record them in any detail is surely superfluous; 
even though they are entirely denied by such eminent mod- 
ern writers as Hefele, in Germany, or Menendez Pelayo, in 
Spain. The hidden enemy, the secret denunciation, the 
sudden arrest, the unknown dungeon, the prolonged inter- 
rogatory, the hideous torture, the pitiless judge, the cer- 
tain sentence, the cruel execution, the public display of 
sacerdotal vengeance, the plunder of the survivors, inno- 
cent even of ecclesiastical offense — all these things are 
known to every reader of every history. All other con- 
siderations apart, it is an abuse of language to speak of 
the proceedings before the Inquisition as a trial, for the 
tribunal was nothing but a Board of Conviction. One 
acquittal in two thousand accusations was, according to 
Llorente, who had access to all the records of the Holy 
Office in Spain, about the proportion that was observed 
in their judicial findings. 

Statistics, as a rule, are not convincing, and figures ar© 
rarely impressive; yet it may be added that, according to 
Llorente's cautious estimate, over ten thousand persons were 
burned alive during the eighteen years of Torquemada's 
supremacy alone; that over six thousand more were burned 
in effigy either in their absence or after their death, and 
their property acquired by the Holy Office; while the num- 
ber of those whose goods were confiscated, after undergoing 
less rigorous punishments, is variously computed at some- 
what more or somewhat less than one hundred thousand. 
But it is obvious that even these terrible figures give but a 
very feeble idea of the vast sum of human suffering that 
followed the steps of this dreadful institution. For they 



94 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

tell no tale of the thousands who died, and the tens of thou- 
sands who suffered, in the torture chamber. They hardly 
suggest the anguish of the widow and the orphan of the 
principal victims, who were left, bereaved and plundered, 
to struggle with a hard and unsympathetic world, desolate, 
poor, and disgraced. 

Nor does the most exaggerated presentment of human 
suffering tell of the disastrous effects of the entire system 
upon religion, upon morals, upon civil society at large. 
The terrorism, the espionage, the daily and hourly dread 
of denunciation, in which every honest man and woman 
must have lived, the boundless opportunities for extortion 
and for the gratification of private vengeance and worldly 
hatred, must have poisoned the whole social life of Spain. 
The work of the Inquisition, while it tended, no doubt, to 
make men orthodox, tended also to make them false, and 
saspicious, and omel. Before the middle of the sixteenth 
century, the Holy Office had profoundly affected the na- 
tional character; and the Spaniard, who had been cele- 
brated In Europe durh^ countless oenturiee for every manly 
virtue, became, in the new world that had been given to 
him, no lees notorious for a cruelty beyond the imagination 
of a Roman emperor, and a rapacity beyond the dreams of 
a repubUcan proconsul. 

Torquemada and Ferdinand may have btimed their thou- 
sands and plundered their ten thousands in Spain. Their 
disciples put to death millions of the gentlest races of the 
earth, and ravaged without scruple or pity the fairest and 
most fertile regions of the new Continent which had been 
given to them to possess. 

As long as the Inquisition confined its operations to the 



THE INQUISITION, 95 

Jews and the Moors, the Old Christians were injured and 
depraved by the development of those tendencies to cruelty 
and rapacity that lie dormant in the heart of every man. 
But this was not the end. For when Spain at length shel- 
tered no more aliens to be persecuted and plundered in the 
name of religion, and murder and extortion were forced to 
seek their easy prey in the new world beyond the Atlantic 
Ocean, the Holy Office turned its attention to domestic 
heresy; and the character of the Spaniard in Europe be- 
came still further demoralized and perverted. Every man 
was suspected. Every man became suspicious. The light- 
est word might lead to the heaviest accusation. The nation 
became somber and silent. Eeligious life was but a step 
removed from heresy. Eeligion died. Original thought 
was above all things dangerous. The Spaniard took ref- 
uge in Routine. Social intercourse was obviously full of 
peril. A prudent man kept himself to himself, and was 
glad to escape the observation of his neighbors. Castile 
became a spiritual desert. The Castilian wrapped himself 
in his cloak, and sought safety in dignified abstraction. 
The Holy Office has done its work in Spain. A rapa- 
cious government, an enslaved people, a hollow religion, 
a corrupt Church, a century of blood, three centuries of 
shame, all these things followed in its wake. And the 
country of Viriatus and Seneca, of Trajan and Marcus 
Aurelius, where Ruy Diaz fought, and Alfonso studied, 
and where two warrior kings in two successive centuries 
defied Rome temporal and Rome spiritual, and all the 
crusaders of Europe — Spain, hardly conquered by Scipio 
or by Caesar, was enslaved by the dead hand of Dominic. 

5 



CHAPTER VI 
THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES 

THE BANISHMENT OF THE JEWS — INTERN ATIONAL NEGO* 

TIATIONS — THE SPANIARDS IN ITALY — THE VICTORIES 

OF GONSALVO— THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA 

The fall of Granada left the Catholic sovereigns free 
to turn their attention more completely to the domestic 
affairs of the kingdom; and it seems moreover to ^ave in- 
creased the bigotry both of the Church and of the Court, 
and to have added new zeal to the fury of the Inquisition, 

The conquest of the Moorish kingdom was said by pious 
ecclesiastics to be a special sign or manifestation of the ap- 
proval by Heaven of the recent institution of the Holy 
OflBce. The knights and nobles, proud of their military 
successes, may have attributed the victory to causes more 
flattering to their valor, their skill, and their perseverance. 
The common people, as yet not demoralized, but gorged 
with plunder, and invited to occupy without purchase the 
fairest province in the Peninsula, were little disposed to 
quarrel with the policy of Ferdinand ; and far from feeling 
any pity for the sufferings of the vanquished Moors, they 
sighed for new infidels to pillage. And new infidels were 
promptly found. 

The Inquisition so far had troubled itself but little with 
Christian heretics. The early Spanish Protestantism of the 
thirteenth century had died away. The later Spanish Prot- 
(96) 



o 

n 

> 

o 
1— I 
cs 



f 




THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 97 

estantism of the sixteenth century had not yet come into 
existence. Few men had done more than Averroes of Cor- 
dova and Ramon Lull of Palma to awaken religious thought 
in Medieval Europe; yet speculative theology has never 
been popular among the Spanish people. It was against 
the Jews, renegade or relapsed, even more than the avowedly 
unconverted, that the Holy Office directed all its exertions 
until the end of the fifteenth century. By April, 1492, al« 
though a great number of the unfortunate Hebrews had 
already found their way to the Quemadero, there was still 
a very large Jewish population in Spain, the most industri- 
ous, the most intelligent, the most orderly, but, unhappily 
for themselves, the most wealthy of all the inhabitants of 
the Peninsula. 

The Spanish Jews, as we have seen, were treated on 
the arrival of the Arab conquerors not only with considera- 
tion, but with an amount of favor that was not extended 
to them under any other government in the world; nor 
was this wise liberality, as time went on, displayed only 
by the Moslem in Spain. At the Christian courts of Leon, 
of Castile, and of Catalonia, the Jews were welcomed as 
lenders of money and as healers of diseases, and as men 
skilled in many industrial arts; and they supplied what 
little science was required in northern Spain, while their 
brethren shared in the magnificent culture and extended 
studies of Cordova. When the rule of the Arab declined, 
and Alfonso el Sabio held his court at southern Seville, the 
learned Jews were his chosen companions. They certainly 
assisted him in the preparation of his great astronomical 
tables. They probably assisted him in bis translatton of 
the Bible 



98 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

Nor does this court favor appear to have caused any 
serious jealousy among Christian Spaniards. The fellow- 
student of Alfonso X., the trusted treasurer of Peter the 
Cruel, the accommodating banker of many a king and 
many a noble — the Jew was for some time a personage of 
importance rather than a refugee in the Peninsula. And 
during the whole of the thirteenth century, while the Jews 
were exposed throughout western Europe to the most dread- 
ful and systematic persecutions, they enjoyed in Spain not 
only immunity, but protection, not only religious freedom, 
but political consideration. 

Under AKonso XI. they were particularly regarded, and 
even under Peter the Cruel, who, though he tortured and 
robbed his Hebrew treasurer, did not at any time display 
his natural ferocity in any form of religious persecution. 
Yet, as we are told that his rival and successor, Henry of 
Trastamara, sought popular favor by molesting the Jews, 
it would seem that already by the end of the fourteenth 
century they were becoming unpopular in Castile. But 
on the whole, throughout the Peninsula, from the time of 
James I. of Aragon, who is said to have studied ethics 
under a Jewish professor, to the time of John II. of Cas- 
tile, who employed a Jewish secretary in the compilation 
of a national "Cancionero," or ballad book, the Jews were 
not only distinguished, but encouraged, in literature and 
abstract science, as they had always been in the more prac- 
tical pursuits of medicine and of commerce. 

But in less than a century after the death of Alfonso 
X. the tide of fortune had turned. Their riches increased 
overmuch in a disturbed and impoverished commonwealth, 
and public indignation began to be displayed, rather at 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES, ^ 

their nn-Christian opulence than at their Jevdsh faith. In- 
quisition was made rather into their strong-boxes than into 
their theology; and it was their debtors and their rivals, 
rather than any religious purists, who, toward the end of 
the fourteenth century, and more especially in Are^gon, 
stirred up those popular risings against their race that led 
to the massacres and the wholesale conversions of 139L 
The first attack that was made upon the persons and prop* 
erty of the Jews was in 1388, and it was no doubt provoked 
by the preaching of the fanatic archdeacon Hernando Mar- 
tinez at Seville. But it was in nowise religious in its ohar* 
acter, and was aimed chiefiy at the acquisition and destruo- 
tion of the property of the rich and prosperous Hebrews. 
The outbreaks which took place almost simultaneously in 
all parts of Spain were disapproved both by kings and 
councils. Special judges were sent to the disturbed cities, 
and a considerable amount of real protection was extended 
to the plundered people. No one said a word about con- 
version; or at least the conversion was that of ancient 
Pistol, the conversion of the property of the Jews into 
the possession of the Christians. When the Jewish quarter 
of Barcelona was sacked by the populace, and an immense 
number of Hebrews were despoiled and massacred through- 
out the country, John of Aragon, indolent though he was, 
used his utmost endeavors to check the slaughter. He 
punished the aggressors, and he even caused a restitution 
of goods to be made to such of the victims as survived. 
The preaching of St. Vincent Ferrer, during the early 
part of the fifteenth century, was addressed largely to the 
Jews in Spain, but little or no religious persecution seems 
to have been directed against them in consequence of hoB 



100 E1S20RY OF SPAIH 

harangues. On the contrary, we read of friendly confer- 
ences or public disputations between Jewish and Christian 
doctors in Aragon, where the Inquisition was, at least, 
nominally established. Such conferences could hardly be 
expected to convince or convert the advocates of either 
faith, but they tell at least of an amount of toleration on 
the part of the Christian authorities of the day that was 
certainly not to be found in Spain at the close of the cent- 
ury; and there is no doubt that they were followed by a 
very large number of conversions of the more malleable 
members of the Hebrew community. But it is a far cry 
from St. Vincent Ferrer to the uncanonized Tomas de 
Torquemada. 

Yet, even in outward conformity to the estabhshed 
religion, the Jews, as time went on, found no permanent 
safety from persecution and plunder. John II. indeed 
had little of the bigot in his composition; it was Politics 
and not Persecution that, under his successor, engrossed 
the attention of clergy and laity in Castile; but, as soon 
as the power of Isabella was formally established, the de- 
struction of all that was not orthodox. Catholic, and Span- 
ish, became the key-note of the domestic poHcy of the new 
government of Spain. 

The earliest efforts of the Spanish Inquisition were 
directed, as we have seen, almost exclusively against 
those converted Jews, or the sons and daughters of con- 
verts, who were known by the expressive name of New 
Christians, a title applied also to Christianized Moslems, 
and which distinguished both classes from the Old Chris- 
tians or Cristianos Viejos, who could boast of a pure Cas- 
tilian ancestry. These New Christians, as a whole, at 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 101 

the end of the fifteenth century, were among the richest, 
the most industrious, and the most intelligent of the popu- 
lation, and they were regarded with considerable envy 
by their poorer neighbors, whose blue blood did not al- 
ways bring with it either wealth or fortune. The Rules 
and Regulations for the guidance of the Inquisitors were 
therefore specially framed to include every possible act 
or thought that might bring the members of the classes 
specially aimed at within the deadly category of the Re- 
lapsed. If the *'New Christian" wore a clean shirt, or 
spread clean table-linen on a Saturday (Art. 4), if he ate 
meat in Lent (7), observed any of the Jewish fasts (8-17), 
or sat at table with any Jew of his acquaintance (19); if 
he recited one of the Psalms of David without the addi- 
tion of the Doxology (20), if he caused his child to be 
baptized under a Hebrew name (23), he was to be treated 
as a renegade and condemned to the flames. 

"With every act of his life thus at the mercy of spies 
and informers, his last end was not unobserved by the Do- 
minicans and the Familiars of the Holy Ofl&ce. If in the 
article of death he turned his weary face (31) to the wall 
of his chamber, he was adjudged relapsed, and all his 
possessions were forfeit; or if the sorrowing children of 
even the most unexceptionable convert had washed his 
dead body with warm water (32) they were to be treated 
as apostates and heretics, and were at least liable to suffer 
death by fire, after their goods had been appropriated by 
the Holy Office or by the Crown. 

In the sentences which condemned to the stake, to con 
fiscation, and to penances which were punishments of the 
severest description, we find enumerated such offenses 



1B 



102 HISTORY OF SPAIJSi. 

as the avoiding the use of fat, and especially of lard; pre- 
paring amive, a kind of broth much appreciated by the 
Jews; or eating "Passover bread"; reading, or even pos- 
sessing, a Hebrew Bible; ignorance of the Pater noster 
and the Creed; saying that a good Jew could be saved, 
and a thousand other equally harmless deeds or words. 

But with the professed and avowed Jew, unpopular 
as he may have been with his neighbors, and exposed 
at times to various forms of civil and religious outrage, 
the Holy Ofl&ce did not directly concern itself. The He- 
brew, like the Moslem, was outside the pale even of Chris- 
tian inquiry. 

There is no doubt that it was the success of the opera- 
tions against the Moors of Granada that suggested to 
Ferdinand and Isabella the undertaking of a campaign, 
easier by far, and scarcely less lucrative, against the un- 
happy descendants of Abraham who had made their home 
in Spain. 

The annual revenue that was derived by the Catholic 
sovereigns from the confiscations of the Inquisition 
amounted to a considerable income; and the source as 
yet showed no signs of drying up. Yet cupidity, march- 
ing hand in hand with intolerance — the Devil, as the 
Spanish proverb has it, ever lurking behind the Cross — 
the sovereigns resolved upon the perpetration of an act 
of State more dreadful than the most comprehensive of 
the Autos da Fe. 

The work of the Holy Office was too slow. The limits 
of the Quemadero were too small. Half a million Jews 
yet lived unbaptized in Spain. They should be destroyed 
at a single blow. The Inquisition might be left to reckon 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 103 

with the New Christians whose conversion was unsatis- 
factory. 

As soon as the Spanish Jews obtained an intimation 
of what was contemplated against them, they took steps 
to propitiate the sovereigns by the tender of a donative 
of thirty thousand ducats, toward defraying the expenses 
of the Moorish war; and an influential Jewish leader is 
said to have waited upon Ferdinand and Isabella, in their 
quarters at Sante Fe, to urge the acceptance of the bribe. 
The negotiations, however, were suddenly interrupted by 
Torquemada, who burst into the apartment where the sov- 
ereigns were giving audience Jto the Jewish deputy, and 
drawing forth a crucifix from beneath his mantle, held it 
up, exclaiming, "Judas Iscariot sold his master for thirty 
pieces of silver; Your Highnesses would sell him anew 
for thirty thousand; here he is, take him and barter him 
away." The extravagant presumption of the inquisitor- 
general would not perhaps have been as successful as it 
was, had it not been obvious to the rapacious Ferdinand 
that thirty thousand ducats was a trifle compared with 
the plunder of the entire body of Jjws in Spain. Yet the 
action of Torquemada was no doubt calculated to affect 
the superstitious mind of Isabella, and even the colder 
spirit of Ferdinand. 

Whatever may have been the scruples of the Spanish 
sovereigns, the fanaticism of the Spanish people had been 
at this critical juncture stirred up to an unusual pitch of 
fey ^7 the proceedings and reports of the Holy Office in 
a case which has attracted an amount of attention so 
entirely disproportionate to its apparent importance that 
it merits something more than a passing notice. 



104 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

Id June, 1490, a converted Jew o£ the name of Benito 
Garcia, on his way back from a pilgrimage to Compos- 
tella, was waylaid and robbed near Astorga, by some of 
the Christian inhabitants. A Jew, converted or other- 
wise, was a legitimate object of plunder. The contents 
of his knapsack not being entirely satisfactory, and the 
ecclesiastical authorities sniffing sacrilege in what was 
supposed to be a piece of the consecrated wafer, Garcia, 
and not the robbers, was arrested, subjected to incredible 
torturds, and finally handed over to the local inquisitors. 

His case was heard with that of other Converses; first 
at Segovia and afterward at Avila. Tortures were re- 
peated. Spies were introduced in various guises and dig- 
guises, but no confession could be extorted. 

At length, after a year and a half of such practices, 
the endurance of one of the accused gave way — ^the dread- 
ful story affords some slight notion of the methods of the 
Inquisition — ^and the unhappy man invented a tale in ac- 
cordance with what was demanded of him; the crucifixion 
of a Christian child; the tearing out of his heart, the theft 
of the Host from a Christian Church, and a magical in- 
cantation over the dreadful elements, directed against 
Christianity, and more particularly against the Holy Office. 
The Tribunal having been thus satisfied of the guilt of 
the accused, a solemn Auto da Fe was held at Avila, on 
the 16th of November, 1491, when two of the convicts 
were torn to death with red-hot pincers; three who had 
been more mercifully permitted to die imder the prelim- 
inary tortures were burned in effigy; while ijhe remaining 
prisoners were visited only with the slight punishment of 
strangulation before their consignment to the inevitable 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 106 

fire. That no boy, with or without a heart, eould b© 
found or invented, by the most rigorous examination; that 
no Christian child had disappeared from the neighborhood 
of the unhappy Jews at the time of their arrest — this sur- 
prised no one. In matters of Faith such evidences were 
wholly superfluous. Secura judicat Ecclesia. 

That these poor Hebrews should have suffered torture 
and death for an imaginary sacrilege upon the person of 
an imaginary boy, was indeed a thing by no means un- 
exampled in the history of religious fanaticism. But the 
sequel is certainly extraordinary. With a view of exciting 
the indignation of the sovereigns and of the people against 
the Jews at an important moment, Torquemada devoted 
much attention to the publication throughout Spain of the 
dreadful story of the murdered boy, the Nino of La Guar- 
dia, the village where the crime is supposed to have taken 
place. As to the name of the victim, the authorities did 
not agree. Some maintained that it was Christopher, while 
others declared for John. But the recital of the awful 
wickedness of the Jews lost none of its force by adverse 
criticism. The legend spread from altar to altar through- 
out the country. The Nuno de la Guardia at once became 
a popular hero, in course of time, a popular saint; miracles 
were freely worked upon the spot where his remains had 
not been found, and something over a century later (1613) 
his canonization was demanded at Rome. 

His remains, it was asserted by Francisco de Quevedo, 
could not be found on earth, only because his body as well 
B& his soul had been miraculously carried up to heaven, 
where it was the most powerful advocate and protector 
of the Spanish monarchy. The story, moreover, has been 



106 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

twice dramatized — once by Lope de Vega — and no less than 
three admiring biographies of this imaginary martyr have 
been published in Spain within the last forty years of this 
nineteenth century. 

At length from conquered Granada, on the 30th of 
March, 1492, the dreadful edict went forth. By the 30tb 
of July not a Jew was to be left alive in Spain. Sisenandj 
indeed, nine hundred years before, had promulgated such 
an edict. But the Visigoth had been too tender-hearted 
to enforce it. Isabella, whose gentleness and goodness his- 
torians are never tired of applauding, was influenced by 
no such considerations, and the sentence was carried out 
to the letter. With a cruel irony, the banished people 
were permitted to sell their property, yet forbidden to 
carry the money out of the kingdom, a provision which 
has obtained the warm approval of more than one modern 
Spanish historian, by whom it is accepted as a conclusive 
proof that this wholesale depopulation did not and could 
not diminish the wealth of Spain! 

Thus two hundred thousand Spaniards, men, women, 
and children of tender years, rich and poor, men of refine- 
ment and of position, ladies reared in luxury, the aged, the 
sick, the infirm, all were included in one common destruc- 
tion, and were driven, stripped of everything, from their 
peaceful homes, to die on their way to some less savage 
country. For the sentence was carried out with the most 
relentless ferocity. Every road to the coast, we read, waa 
thronged with the unhappy fugitives, struggling to carry 
off some shred of their ruined homes. To succor them was 
death ; to pillage them was piety. At every seaport, rapa* 
«ious shipmasters exacted from the defenseless travelers the 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 107 

greater part of their remaiuing poBsessioiis, as the price <^ 
a passage to some neighboring coast; and in many cases 
the passenger was tossed overboard ere the voyage was 
completed, and his goods confiscated to the crew. A 
rumor having got abroad that the fugitives were in the 
habit of swallowing jewels and gold pieces in order to 
evade the royal decree, thousands of imhappy beings were 
ripped up by the greedy knife of the enemy, on land or 
sea, on the chance of discovering in their mutilated remains 
some little store of treasure. 

And thus, north, south, east, and west, the Jews stra^ 
gled and struggled over Spain; and undeterred by the mani- 
fold terrors of the sea, a vast multitude of exiles, whose 
homes in Spain once lay in sunny Andalusia, sought and 
found an imcertain abiding place in neighboring Africa. 

Of all Christian countries, it was in neighboring Portu- 
gal that the greatest number of the exiles found refuge and 
shelter; until, after five brief years of peace and compara- 
tive prosperity, the heavy hand of Castilian intolerance 
once more descended upon them, and they were dnveii 
out of the cotmtry, at the bidding of Isabella and her too 
dutiful daughter, the hope of Portugal and of Castile. 

But to every coimtry in Europe the footsteps of some 
c^ ^e sufferers were directed. Not a few were permitted 
lo abide in Italy and Southern France; some of the most 
distinguished found a haven in England; many were forttt* 
nate enough to reach the Ottoman dominions, where, mider 
the tolerant government of the Turk, they lived and pros- 
pered, and where their descendants, at many of the more 
Important seaports of the Levant, are still found to Sj^&ak 
tiie Castilian of their forefathers. 



108 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

That the edict of banishment was meant to be, as it so 
constantly was, a doom of death, and not merely a removal 
of heretics, is clear from the action of the Spanish sovereigns, 
who, at the instigation of Torquemada, procured from the 
pliant Innocent VIII. a Bull enjoining the authorities of 
every country in Christian Europe to arrest and send back 
to Spain all fugitive Jews under penalty of the Greater 
Excommunication.. 

More than once, indeed, the demand for extradition was 
made. But save in the case of the Portuguese Jews, on 
the second marriage of the Princess Isabella to the reign- 
ing sovereign of that country, no foreign prince appears to 
have paid any heed to this savage edict. Nor was it, as 
a rule, of any material advantage, either at Rome or at 
Seville, that it should be put in force. 

Avarice was perhaps the besetting sin of Rome in the 
fifteenth century; nor was bigotry unknown throughout 
western Europe. But in Spain, as the century drew to a 
close, avarice and bigotry joined hand in hand, and flour- 
ished tinder royal and noble patronage, preached by religion, 
practiced by policy, and applauded by patriotism. It was 
not strange that, under such teaching, the people of Castile 
should have rapidly become demoralized, and that the great 
race should have begun to develop that sordid and self- 
satisfied savagery which disgraced the name of the Span- 
iard, in the heartless and short-sighted plunder of the new 
world that lay before him. 

Yet in all human affairs there is something that too 
often escapes our observation, to explain, if not to excuse, 
what may seem the most dreadful aberrations of the better 
nature of man. And it may be that the uncompromising 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 109 

religious spirit, which has had so enormous an influence for 
evil and for good upon the Spanish people, is to some extent 
the result of their Semitic environment of eight hundred 
years. 

ReHgious controversy indeed, between rival branches of 
the Christian Church in the days of the Visigoths, developed 
rehgious animosities before the first Moslem landed at Tarifa; 
yet the Arab and the Moor, fired with the enthusiasm of a 
new and Hving faith, brought into their daily hfe in Spain, 
in peace and in war, a deep and all-pervading religious 
spirit — an active recognition of the constant presence of 
one true God — unknown to the Roman or the Visigoth, 
which must have had an enormous influence upon the 
grave and serious Spaniards who lived under the rule 
of the Arab. 

Nor was the Moslem the only factor in this medieval 
development. In no other country in Europe was the Jew, 
as we have seen, more largely represented, and more power- 
ful, for the first fifteen centuries of our era, than in Spain, 
whether under Christian or Moslem masters. But the direct 
and simple monotheism of the Hebrew and the Arab, while 
it had so great a direct influence upon Spanish Christianity, 
provoked as part of the natural antagonism to the methods 
of the rival and the enemy, the counter development of an 
excessive Hagiolatry, Mariolatry, and Sacerdotahsm. 

It would be strange enough if the religious fervor which 
doomed to death and torment so many tens of thousands 
of Semites in Spain should be itself of Semitic suggestion. 
It is hardly less strange that the Greek Renaissance, which 
revolutionized the Christian world, and whose anti-Semitic 
influence to the present day is nowhere more marked than 



110 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

in every department of religious thought, should by the 
irony of fate have been forestalled by a writer, at once 
Spanish and Semitic; and when, by the sixteenth century, 
the rest of modern Europe had been led by the teaching of 
Averroes to accept the philosophy of Aristotle, Spain, the 
earliest home of Hellenism, new born in Europe, had al- 
ready turned again to a religious Philistinism or Pharisee- 
ism of the hardest and most uncompromising type, Semitic 
in its thoroughness, Greek only in its elaborate accessories, 
and Spanish in its uncompromising vigor. 

Thus it was that the Arab and the Jew, parents, in 
some sense, of the religious spirit of Ximenez and of Tor- 
quemada, became themselves the objects of persecution 
more bitter than is to be found in the annals of any other 
European nation. The rigors of the Spanish Inquisition, 
and the policy that inspired and justified it, are not to be 
fully explained by the rapacity of Ferdinand, the bigotry 
of Isabella, the ambition of Ximenez, or the cruelty of Tor- 
quemada. They were in a manner the rebellion or outbreak 
of the old Semitic spirit against the Semite, the ignorant 
jealousy of the wayward disciple against the master whose 
teaching has been but imperfectly and unintelligently as- 
similated — perverted, distorted, and depraved by the human 
or devilish element which is to be found in all religions, 
and which seems ever striving to destroy the better, and to 
develop the worser part of the spiritual nature of man. 

We now enter upon a period of European history which 
is but feebly characterized by the term interesting, and 
which has been too accurately chronicled and too severely 
investigated to be called romantic; when a well-founded 
jealousy, or fear of the growing power of France, alone 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES, 111 

supplies the key to the ever-changing foreign policy of th« 
sovereigns of Spain. Genuine State papers of the fifteenth 
century are by no means numerous. In such of them, how- 
ever, as are still extant, we find the fear expressed over 
and over again that the kings of France would render them- 
selves ** masters of the world,'' would ''establish a universal 
empire," or ''subject the whole of Christendom to their dic- 
tation." The best means to avert such a danger appeared 
to contemporary statesmen to be the foundation of another 
European State as a counterpoise. Ferdinand the Catholic, 
ambitious, diplomatic, and capable, was the first prince who 
undertook the enterprise. 

Within less than three years after the Inquisition had 
been established at Seville, Louis XI. of France, the old 
rival and colleague of John II. of Aragon, had died in 
Paris, August 30, 1483. He was succeeded by his son 
Charles VIII., a young prince whose ignorance was only 
equaled by his vanity, and was if possible exceeded by his 
presumption. With such an antagonist, Ferdinand of Ara- 
gon was well fitted to deal, with advantage to himself and 
to Spain. To win over the Duchess of Bourbon, who had 
virtually succeeded to the government of France on the 
death of Louis XL, and to marry his eldest daughter Isa- 
bella to the young King Charles VIII., were accordingly 
the first objects of his negotiations. But in spite of all the 
flattery lavished on the duchess, Ferdinand did not* succeed 
in obtaining the crown for the Infanta. A more richly 
dowered bride was destined for the King of France, to 
whom the acquisition of the province of Brittany was of 
far greater importance than the doubtful friendship of Spain; 
and after much public and private negotiation, the Spanish 



112 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

embassador was reluctantly withdrawn from Paris in the 
summer of 1487 (29th of July). 

Disappointed in his dealing with the court of France, 
the ever- watchful and persistent Ferdinand turned his eyes 
to England; and in the last days of the year 1487 an em- 
bassador from the Spanish sovereigns, Roderigo de Puebla, 
doctor of canon and civil law, arrived at the court of Lon- 
don. Henry VIZ., who greatly desired to establish a closer 
alliance with Spain, succeeded in flattering the new envoy, 
and rendering him almost from the first subservient to 
his personal interests. Yet the King of England and the 
Spanish embassador together were no match for Ferdinand 
of Aragon. The negotiations between the sovereigns were 
prolonged for two years, and in the end Henry was worsted 
at every point. He had signed a treaty of offensive alliance 
with Spain against France, with which power he wisely de- 
sired to maintain friendly relations, and he had been pre- 
vailed upon to send some English troops into Brittany to 
co-operate with a Spanish contingent which never arrived, 
in the expulsion of the French from that country. He had 
concluded further treaties of friendship and alliance with 
the King of the Romans, who was actually encouraging 
Perkin Warbeck to assert his claim to the crown of Eng- 
land, and with the Archduke Philip, whom he personally 
and independently hated. And he had been forced to con- 
tent himself with the promise of a very modest dowry with 
the Spanish princess who was affianced to his son Arthur, 
Prince of Wales. 

Relatively too, as well as positively, he had been falsely 
borne in hand. Maximilian, who had been no less ready 
than Henry with his promises to Ferdinand, did not send 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES, 113 

a single soldier into Brittany, but endeavored to overreach 
Henry, Charles, and Ferdinand by a hasty marriage— by 
proxy — ^with the young duchess, without the consent or 
knowledge of either England or Spain. Yet this diplo- 
matic victory over the very astute Englishman did not sat- 
isfy Ferdinand and Isabella, who, fearful lest they should 
"become the victims of their honesty" if they permitted 
Maximilian to surpass them in political perfidy, imme- 
diately renewed secret negotiations with France, and de- 
clared themselves ready to abandon the king, the duchess, 
and the emperor. Charles, they promised, should obtain 
what he wished, without risking the life of a single sol- 
dier, if only he would marry a Spanish Infanta. And they 
offered him, not Isabella, their eldest bom, but their second 
daughter, Joanna. 

Charles, however, had other views, and finding no co- 
hesion or certainty in Ferdinand's league against him, 
strengthened his cause and his kingdom by marrying the 
Duchess Anne of Brittany himself, and uniting her heredi- 
tary dominions forever to the crown of France, a fair stroke 
of policy for a foolish sovereign in the midst of crafty and 
unscrupulous adversaries. (December 13, 1491.) 

Ferdinand replied by calling on Henry YII. to fulfill hig 
engagements and invade France. Henry accordingly, on 
the 1st of October, 1492, landed an army at Calais, and 
marched on Boulogne; while Ferdinand, without striking 
a blow either for Spain or for England, took advantage of 
the English expedition to extort from the fears and folly 
of Charles VIII. the favorable conditions of peace and alli- 
ance that were embodied in the celebrated Convention which 
was signed at Barcelona on the 19th of January, 1493. By 



114 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

this instrument it was provided that each of the high con- 
tracting parties should mutually aid each other against all 
enemies, the Vicar of Christ alone excepted, that the Span- 
ish sovereigns should not enter into an alliance with any- 
other power, to the prejudice of the interests of France, 
and finally, that the coveted provinces of Roussillon and 
Oerdagne, whose recovery had long been one of the chief 
objects of Ferdinand's ambition, should be immediately 
handed over to Spain. 

The services of England being no longer needed by 
the peninsular sovereigns, Ferdinand abruptly broke off 
all further negotiations with Henry VII.; the signatures 
of Ferdinand and Isabella to the treaty which had already 
been ratified were disposed of by the simple but effective 
expedient of cutting them out of the parchment with a 
pair of scissors; and the contract of marriage between 
Arthur, Prince of Wales, and the Infanta Catharine hav- 
ing served its immediate diplomatic purpose — was re- 
moved, for the time being,* from the sphere of practical 
politics. 

It is sufficiently characteristic of both parties, that in 
the treaty of Barcelona, between Charles and Ferdinand, 
Naples, the true objective of the young king of France, 
was not even mentioned. Ferdinand, well content with 
the immediate advantages obtained by the treaty, was 
by no means imposed upon by such vain reticence, while 
Charles, pluming himself upon the success of his diplo- 
macy in his treaties with England, with Prance, and with 
the empire, looked forward to establishing himself with- 

• From January, 1493, till October, 1497. 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 115 

out opposition on the throne of Naples, on his way to 
assume the Imperial purple at Constantinople. 

The kingdom of Kaples, on the death of Alfonso the 
Magnanimous of Aragon, had passed, we have already 
seen, to his illegitimate son Ferdinand, who proved to be 
a tyrant of the worst Italian type, worthless, contemptible 
and uninteresting. To expel this hated monarch, for whom 
not one of his Neapolitan subjects would have been found 
to strike a blow in anger, seemed but a chivalrous and 
agreeable pastime to the vain and ignorant youth who had 
succeeded Louis XI. upon the throne of France. His more 
experienced neighbors indeed smiled with some satisfac- 
tion at his presumption. Yet, strange to say, the judg- 
ment of the vain and ignorant youth was just; and the 
wise men, who ridiculed his statesmanship, and scoffed 
at his military ineptitude, were doomed to great and as- 
tounding disappointment. 

Before the French preparations for the invasion of Italy 
were fairly completed, in the early spring of 1494, Ferdi- 
nand of Naples died, and was succeeded by his son Alfonso 
I., the cousin-german of Ferdinand of Aragon. This 
change of rulers altered in no way the wild schemes of 
Charles of France, nor, although the new king of Naples 
was far less odious than his father had been in his own 
dominions, did it make any important change in the con- 
dition of Italian politics. By the month of June, 1494, the 
French preparations were so far advanced that Charles 
judged it opportune to acquaint his Spanish allies with 
his designs on Naples, and to solicit their active co-opera= 
tion in his undertaking. 

That Ferdinand should, under any possible circum- 



116 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

stances, have been found to spend the blood and treasure 
of Spain in assisting any neighbor, stranger, or ally, in any 
enterprise, without direct advantage to himself, was a sup- 
position entirely extravagant. But that he should assist a 
feather-headed Frenchman to dispossess a son of Aragon 
of a kingdom from which his own ancestors had thrice 
driven a French pretender, and where, if any change were 
to be made in the sovereignly, his own rights of succession 
were far superior to the shadowy claims derived from the 
hated Angevins: this was a thing so grotesquely preposter- 
ous that it is hard to suppose that even Charles of France 
should have regarded it as being within the boimds of pos- 
sibility. Ferdinand contented himself for the moment with 
expressions of astonishment and offers of good advice, while 
Charles pushed forward his preparations for the invasion of 
Italy. Don Alfonso de Silva, dispatched by the court of 
Spain as a special envoy, came up with the French army 
at Yienne, on the Ehone, toward the end of June, 1494. 
But he was instructed rather to seek, than to convey, in- 
telligence of any sort; nor was it to be supposed that his 
grave remonstrances or his diplomatic warnings should have 
had much effect upon the movements of an army that was 
already on the march. 

In August, 1494, thirty thousand men, hastily equipped, 
yet well provided with the new and dreadful weapon that 
was then first spoken of as a cannon, crossed the Alps, and 
prepared to fight their way to Naples. But no enemy ap- 
peared to oppose their progress. The various States of Italy, 
jealous of one another, if not actually at war, were unable 
or unwilling to combine against the invader; the roads were 
undefended; the troops fled; the citizens of the isolated cities 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 117 

opened their gates, one after the other, at the approach of 
the strange and foreign invader. The French army, in fine, 
after a leisurely promenade militaire through the heart of 
Italy, marched unopposed into Rome on the last day of the 
year 1494. 

Ferdinand and Isabella had, in the first instance, offered 
no serious opposition to the French enterprise, which ap- 
peared to them to be completely impracticable; and they 
had awaited with diplomatic equanimity the apparently 
inevitable disaster, which, without the loss of a single 
Spanish soldier or the expenditure of a single maravedi, 
would at once have served all the purposes of Ferdinand, 
and permitted him to maintain his reputation for goodwill 
toward Charles, which might have been useful in future 
negotiations. The astonishing success of the French inva- 
sion took the Spanish sovereigns completely by surprise, 
and it became necessary for Ferdinand to adopt, without 
haste, but with prudent promptitude, a new policy at once 
toward France and toward the various parties in Italy. 

The boldest and the most capable of all the sovereigns 
of Italy, in these trying times, was the Spanish Pontiff, 
who by a singular fate has been made, as it were, the 
whipping boy for the wickedness of nineteen centuries of 
popes at Rome, and who is known to every schoolboy and 
every scribbler as the infamous Alexander VI. Roderic 
Lenzuoli, or Llangol, was the son of a wealthy Valencian 
gentleman, by Juana, a sister of the more distinguished 
Alfonso Borja, bishop of his native city of Valencia. 

Born at Valencia about 1431, Roderic gave evidence 
from his earliest years of a remarkable strength of char- 
acter, and of uncommon intellectual powers. While still 



118 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

a youth, he won fame and fortune as an advocatec But 
his impatient nature chafed at the moderate restraint of a 
lawyer's gown ; and he was on the point of adopting a mili- 
tary career, when the election of his uncle to the Supreme 
Pontificate as Calixtus III. in 1455 opened for him the way 
to a more glorious future. At the instance of the new Pope, 
Roderic adopted his mother's name, in the Italian form al- 
ready so well known and distinguished at the court of Rome, 
and taking with him his beautiful mistress, Rosa Vanozza, 
whose mother he had formerly seduced, he turned his back 
upon his native Valencia, and sought the fortune that awaited 
him at the capital of the world. 

Unusually handsome in his person, vigorous in mind and 
body, masterful, clever, eloquent, unscrupulous, absolutely 
regardless of all laws, human or divine, in the gratification 
of his passions and the accomplishment of his designs, Rod- 
eric, the Pope's nephew, was a man made for success in 
the society in which he was to find himself at Rome. On 
his arrival at the Papal court in 1456 he was received with 
great kindness by his uncle, and was soon created Arch- 
bishop of Valencia, Cardinal of St. Nicholas in Carcere 
Tulliano, and Vice- Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church. 
On the death of Calixtus, in 1458, the Cardinal Roderic 
Borgia sank into comparative insignificance; and during 
the reigns of Pius II., Paul II., Sixtus IV. and Innocent 
VIII. we hear little of him but that he was distinguished 
for his amours, for his liberality in the disposal of his fort- 
une, and for his attention to public business. Having thus 
secured the goodwill of many of the cardinals and the affec- 
tion of the Roman people, he had no difficulty, on the death 
of Innocent VIII. in July, 1492, in making a bargain with 



THEIR CATHOLIQ MAJESTIES. 119 

a majority of the members of the Sacred College, in a<}cord- 
ance with which he was elected Pope, and took the title of 
Alexander VI. on the 26th of August, 1492. 

His election was received by the Roman people with the 
utmost satisfaction, and celebrated with all possible demon- 
strations of joy. His transcendent abilities and his reckless 
methods could not fail to render him obnoxious to his com- 
panions and his rivals in Italy; but it is due rather to his 
foreign origin, his Valencian independence of character, and 
above all his insolent avoidance of hypocrisy in the affairs 
of his private life, that he has been made a kind of ecclesi- 
astical and Papal scapegoat, a Churchman upon whose enor- 
mous vices Protestant controversialists are never tired of 
dilating, and whose private wickedness is ingenuously ad- 
mitted by Catholic apologists as valuable for the purposes 
of casuistic illustration, as the one instance of a divinely 
infallible judge whose human natul*e yet remained mysteri- 
ously impure, and whose personal or individual actions may 
be admitted to have been objectively blamable. 

To measure the relative depths of human infamy is an 
impossible as well as an ungrateful task. It is not given 
to mortals to know the secrets of the heart. But bad as 
Alexander undoubtedly was, he was possibly no worse than 
many of his contemporaries in the Consistory, less wicked 
than some of his predecessors at the Vatican. The guilt 
of greater and more vigorous natures passes for superlative 
infamy with the crowd ; but when dispassionately compared 
with that of his immediate predecessors, Sixtus IV. and In- 
nocent VIII., the character of Alexander VI. is in almost 
every respect less flagitious and more admirable. 

So unblushing was the venality of the Holy See in the 



120 HISTORV OF SPAIN. 

fourteenth century that sacred dialecticians and jurists of 
high authority were found seriously to argue that the Pope 
was not subjectively capable of committing the offense of 
Simony. It might have been contended with equal justice 
that in every other respect he was at once above, or with- 
out, the scope of the entire moral law. Nor can it be said 
that the fifteenth century brought any serious amendment. 
From the death of Benedict XI., in 1303, to the death 
of Alexander VI., in 1503, the night was dark before the 
inevitable dawn ; and in every phase of human depravity, 
in every development of human turpitude, in arrogance, 
in venality, in cruelty, in licentiousness, medieval Popes 
may be found pre-eminent among contemporary potentates. 
Thus, if the wickedness of Alexander was extravagant, 
it was by no means unparalleled, even among the Popes 
of a single century. His cruelty was no greater than that 
of Urban VI., or of Clement VII., or of John XXII. His 
immorality was, at least, more human than that of Paul 
II. and of Sixtus IV., nor were his amours more scandal- 
ous than those of Innocent VIII. His sacrilege was less 
dreadful than that of Sixtus IV. His covetousness could 
hardly have exceeded that of Boniface IX. ; his arrogance 
was less offensive than that of Boniface VIII. If he was 
unduly subservient to Ferdinand and Isabella in his toler- 
ation of the enormities of Torquemada, his necessities as 
an Italian sovereign rendered the Spanish alliance a mat- 
ter of capital importance. As a civil potentate and as a 
politician, he was not only wiser, but far less corrupt than 
Sforza, less rapacious than Ferdinand, more constant than 
Maximilian of Germany, less reckless than Charles of 
France. His administrative ability, his financial enlight- 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES, 191 

enment, his energy as regards public works, were no less 
remarkable than his personal liberality, his affability, and 
his courage. His division of the New World by a stroke 
of the pen was an assumption of imperial power which 
was at least justified by the magnitude of its success. Am 
he sat in his palace on the Mons Vaticanus, he was the 
successor, not of Caligula, but of Tiberius — ^not of Oom* 
modus, but of Diocletian. 

Of the misfortimes of his eldest son, created by Fer- 
dinand Duke of Gandia; of the wickedness of his second 
son, the fifteenth century Cassar, who succeeded his father 
as Cardinal Archbishop of Valencia; of the profiigacy of 
his daughter, so unhappily named Lucretia; of the mar- 
riage of his yoimgest son Geoffrey to a daughter of Al* 
f onso of Naples, as a part of the treaty of alliance between 
the kingdom ci the Two Sicilies and the States of tha 
Church, in 1494; of the alliance between Alexander and 
Bajazet, and the poisoning of the Sultan's brother, Zem, 
after thirteen years' captivity, on receipt of an appropriate 
fee; of the elevation of a facile envoy to the full rank of 
Cardinal, to please the Grand Turk; of all these tiungis 
nothing need be said in this place. 

We are more immediately concerned to know that on 
New Year's Day, 1495, Pope Alexander VI., a refngee, 
if not actually a prisoner, in the Castle of St. Angelo, waa 
fain to accept the terms that were imposed upon him by 
the victorious Frenchmen — ^masters for the nonce of Italy, 
and of Rome. 

As Charles VIII. was marching through Italy, and was 
approaching, all imopposed, the sacred city of Rome, Alex* 
ander VI., anxious at all hazards to obtain the assistance 



123 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

of his countrymen in the hour of danger, had sent an 
envoy to the Spanish court representing the critical state 
of affairs in Italy, assuring the king and queen of his 
constant good will, in spite of certain disputes as to the 
Papal authority in Spain, and convejdng to them, with 
other less substantial favors, the grant of the Tercias, or 
two-ninths of the tithes throughout all the dominions of 
Castile, an impost which, until the middle of the present 
century, formed a part of the revenues of the Spanish 
monarchy. He also conceded to the Spanish crown the 
right of dominion over the whole of northern Africa, ex- 
cept Fez, which had been given to the King of Portugal. 
A projected marriage between the Duke of Calabria, 
eldest son of the King of Naples, and the Infanta Maria, 
daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, served to give the 
King of Spain an opportunity for negotiating with the 
Neapolitan court; and Ferdinand at the same time dis- 
patched the celebrated Garcilaso de la Vega as his em- 
bassador, with instructions to return the most comforting 
assurances to the Pope at Rome. Yet he refrained from 
making any definite promises, or from committing himself 
to any definite policy. He was not a man to do anything 
rashly; and he preferred to await the course of events. 
Meanwhile, having sent a second mission from Guadala- 
jara to the French court or camp, with good advice for 
bis young friend and ally Charles VIII., Ferdinand betook 
himself with Isabella to Madrid, where the Spanish sov- 
ereigns devoted themselves to the preparation and equip- 
ment of an army to be dispatched at an opportune moment 
to any part of Italy where subsequent events might ren- 
der its presence necessary. As, for various reasons, it was 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 128 

impossible that either Ferdinand or Isabella should aocom* 
pany their army abroad, it became necessary to select a 
general. Among all the skillful leaders and gallant knights 
who had signalized themselves in the wars of Granada, it 
was somewhat difficult to decide upon a conmiander. But 
Isabella had never lost sight of Gbnsalvo de Cordova, in 
whom she discerned traces of rare military talent; and 
from the moment the Sicilian expedition was planned she 
determined that he should be captain-general of the royal 
forces. The greats experience and apparently superior 
claims of many who had distinguished themselves in bat* 
tie against the Moors were urged by Ferdinand without 
avail. The command was given to Gonsalvo de Cordova. 
But while the Spanish fleet, under the gallant Count of 
Trivento, was riding at anchor at AHcante, and Gonsalvo 
was preparing to embark his army on board the ships in 
that harbor, the Spanish sovereigns dispatched a final em* 
bassy to Charles in Italy. On the 28th of January, 1495, 
as the king was leaving Borne on tiis way toward Naples, 
the embassadors, Juan de Albion and Antonio de Fonseca, 
arrived at the Vatican. They found Pope Alexand^ 
smarting under the humiliation of his recent treaty with 
the invader, and willing to assist them in any scheme for 
his discomfiture. They accordingly foUowed the French 
army with all speed, overtook it within a few miles of 
Home, and immediately demanded an audience of Charles, 
even before his troops had come to a halt. They delivered 
up to him their credentials as he was riding along, and 
peremptorily required him to proceed no further toward 
Naples. The haughty tone of the Spaniards, as may bo 
supposed, excited the greatest indignation in the breast of 



124 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

Charles and those who surrounded him ; high words arose 
on both sides, and finally Fonseca, giving way to a simu- 
lated transport of rage, produced a copy of the once prized 
treaty of Barcelona, tore it to pieces, and threw down the 
fragments at Charles's feet. Paul Jove seems to think that 
this violent and unjustifiable conduct on the part of the 
Spanish embassador was entirely unpremeditated; but it 
is certain that the whole scene had been preconcerted with 
either Ferdinand or the Pope. Zurita and the other chron- 
iclers are silent on the point, but Peter Martyr in one of 
his letters affirms that the mutilation of the treaty in 
Charles's presence was included in the secret instructions 
given to Fonseca by Ferdinand. 

The envoys, as was expected, were promptly ordered 
to quit the French camp; and retiring with all speed to 
Borne, they hastened to transmit to Spain the earliest in- 
telligence of the success of their mission. They were also 
permitted to inform their sovereigns of the new honor that 
had been conferred upon them by his Holiness Alexander 
VI., in the shape of the grant to them and to their heirs 
forever on the throne of Spain of the title of "Catholic 
Kings." 

Meanwhile Charles VIII. had reached Naples, which 
had at once opened its gates to the invaders, and the 
Castel Nuovo and the Castel d'Uovo were reduced to 
submission by their well served artillery. King Alfonso 
abdicated the crown, and Fabricio Colonna ravaged the 
whole kingdom of Naples to the very gates of Brindisi, 
dispersing the little band of troops that had been collected 
by Don Caesar of Aragon, illegitimate brother of the king; 
while Perron dei Baschi and Stuart D'Aubigny overran 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES, 125 

the whole country almost without striking a blow; and the 
greater part of the Neapolitan nobility gave their adhesion 
to the French. Nothing, however, could be more impo- 
litic or more ungrateful than the manner in which Charles 
made use of his unexpectedly acquired authority, and it 
soon became evident that the new state of affairs in Naples 
would not be of very long duration. The moment for the 
judicious interference of Ferdinand of Aragon had noft been 
long in arriving. 

The conduct of the French at Naples showed pretty 
clearly to the Italian States the mistake they had made 
in permitting Charles to enter the country, and they were 
not slow to accept the suggestions of the Spanish embassa- 
dor, Don Lorenzo Suarez de Mendoza y Figueras, that they 
should form a league with the object of expelling the 
French from Italy. The attitude of the Duke of Orleans, 
who had remained at Asti, toward the duchy of Milan, 
and the favorable reception accorded by Charles to Gio- 
vanni Trivulzio, Cardinal Fregosi, and Hybletto dei Fieschi, 
the chiefs of the banished nobles, and the sworn enemies of 
Ludivico Sforza, showed that prince how little he had to 
expect from the French alliance ; and the conduct of Charles 
toward the Florentines, and indeed toward every govern- 
ment whose dominion he had traversed throughout Italy, 
terrified and enraged every statesman from Milan to Syra- 
cuse. 

The envoys of the various states assembled at Venice. 
The deliberations in the council chamber were brief and 
decisive; and such was the secrecy with which the nego- 
tiations were conducted that the astute statesrcuan and his- 
torian Philip de Commines, who then represented France 



126 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

at the court of Venice, remained ignorant that any league 
or convention was even contemplated by the various pow- 
ers, until he was informed by the Doge Agostino Bar- 
berigo, on the morning of the 1st of April, 1495, that the 
treaty had been signed on the previous day. The avowed 
objects of this Most Holy League, which was entered into 
by Spain, Austria, Venice, Milan and the Court of Rome, 
were the recovery of Constantinople from the Turks, and 
the protection of the interests of the Church ; but the secret 
articles of the treaty, as may be supposed, went much 
further, and provided that Ferdinand should employ the 
Spanish armament, now on its way to Sicily, in re-estab- 
lishing his kinsman on the throne of Naples ; that a Vene- 
tian fleet of forty galleys should attack the French posi- 
tions on the Neapolitan coasts, that the Duke of Milan, 
the original summoner, should expel the French from Asti, 
and blockade the passage of the Alps, so as to prevent the 
arrival of further re-enforcements, and that the Emperor 
and the King of Spain should invade France on their re- 
spective frontiers, while the expense of all these warlike 
operations should be defrayed by subsidies from the allies. 
The Sultan Bajazet II., though not included in the League, 
offered, and was permitted, to assist the Venetians both by 
sea and land against the French. Thus we see the strange 
spectacle of the Pope and the Grand Turk — the Prince c^ 
Christendom and the Prince of Islam — united against the 
first Christian Power of Europe, under the leadership of 
The Most Christian King. 

Within six weeks of the signature of this important 
treaty, Charles VIII. of France had caused himself to be 
crowned at Naples, with extraordinary pomp, not only 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. X27 

as king, but as emperor; and, having thus gratified his 
puerile vanity, he abandoned his fantastic empire, and 
flying from the dangers that threatened him in Italy he 
returned to Paris. His army in Naples was intrusted 
to his cousin, Gilbert de Bourbon, due de Montpensier, 
who was invested with the title of viceroy, and instructed 
by the fugitive king to maintain his position in the country 
against all opponents. 

It is not within the scope of this history to give any 
detailed account of the retreat of the French through 
Italy, of the wonderful passage of the Apennines at Pon- 
tremoH, and the still more wonderful victory of Fornovo 
on the Taro, when the French, whose entire force did not 
exceed ten thousand soldiers, completely routed the Italian 
army of thirty-five thousand men, under the command of 
Gonzago, marquis of Mantua. The French forces that re- 
mained in southern Italy were doomed to a very different 
fate. The command of the French army had been in- 
trusted to the celebrated Stuart d'Aubigny, a knight of 
Scottish ancestry, who had been invested by Charles VIII. 
with the dignity of Constable of France, and who was 
accounted one of the most capable officers in Europe. 
But a greater captain than d'Aubigny was already on his 
way from Castile, who was in a single campaign to re- 
store the reputation of the Spanish infantry to the proud 
position which they had once occupied in the armies of 
ancient Rome. 

Landing at Reggio in Calabria, on the 26th of May, 
1495, with a force of all arms not exceeding five thou- 
sand fighting men, Gonsalvo de Cordova speedily pos- 
sessed himself of that important base of operations, es- 



126 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

tablished himself on the coast, captured several inland 
towns, was victorious in many skirmishes, and would 
soon have overrun the whole of Calabria, had not the 
rashness of Ferdinand, the young king of Naples, who 
had succeeded but a few months before to the crown 
which Alfonso had abdicated after a reign of less than 
one year, led to a disastrous check at Seminara. But 
Gonsalvo rapidly reorganized his army, and showing 
himself, like a great general, no less admirable in repair- 
ing a defeat than in taking advantage of a victory, he 
had kept d'Aubigny so completely in check that he had 
been unable even to go to the assistance of Montpensier, 
who was in sore straits in Naples. The citizens soon 
opened their gates to their lawful sovereign, and Mont- 
pensier retreated with his remaining forces to Avella, on 
the banks of the Lagni, twenty miles northeast of the 
city of Naples, whither Gonsalvo promptly marched to 
besiege him. Having received intelligence in the course 
of his march — Gonsalvo was ever well informed — that a 
strong body of French, with some Angevin knights and 
nobles, were on their way to effect a junction with d'Au- 
bigny, he surprised them by a night attack in the forti- 
fied town of Lino, where he captured every one of the 
Angevin lords, no less than twenty in number, and im- 
mediately marching off to Avella with his spoils and pris- 
oners, and an immense booty, he arrived at Ferdinand's 
camp early in July, just thirteen months after their sep- 
aration on the disastrous field of Seminara. 

On hearing of Gonsalvo's approach, the king marched 
out to meet him, accompanied by Caesar Borgia, the Papal 
Legate, and many of the principal Neapolitan nobles and 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 129 

commanders, who greeted the victorious Castilian with 
the proud title of "The Great Captain," by which he was 
already known to some of his contemporaries, and by 
which he has ever since been distinguished by posterity. 
At Avella he found a re-enforcement of five hundred 
Spanish soldiers, a welcome addition to his small force, 
which amounted on his arrival to only two thousand one 
hundred men, of whom six hundred were cavalry. With 
such an army, less numerous than a modern German 
regiment, did Gonsalvo overrun Calabria, out-general 
the most renowned French commanders, and defeat their 
gallant and well-disciplined forces, emboldened by unin- 
terrupted success. 

The siege operations at Avella, which had been con- 
ducted without energy by the Neapolitans, received a 
new impetus from the presence of the Spaniard, who dis- 
played such skill and vigor that in a few days the 
French, defeated at every point, were glad to sue for 
terms, and on the 21st of July, 1496, signed a capitula- 
tion which virtually put an end to the war. It was meet 
that Gonsalvo should now pay a visit to his countryman 
at the Vatican, and having, on his way to Eome, deliv- 
ered the town of Ostia from the dictatorship of a Basque 
adventurer of the name of Guerri, the last remaining 
hope of the French in Italy, he was received by Alex- 
ander VI. with such splendor that his entry into the city 
is said to have resembled rather the triumph of a vic- 
torious general into ancient Rome than the visit of a 
modem grandee. 

The streets were lined with enthusiastic crowds, the 
windows were filled with admiring spectators^ the very 



130 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

tops of the houses were covered with lookers-on, as Gon- 
salvo inarched into and through the city, preceded by 
bands of music, and accompanied by his victorious army. 
The entire garrison of Ostia, with Manuel Guerri at their 
head, mounted on a wretched horse, was led captive to 
the Vatican, where Roderic Borgia, in the full splendor 
of his tiara and pontifical robes, and surrounded by his 
cardinals, sat on his throne awaiting the coming of his 
victorious countryman. When Gonsalvo reached the foot 
of the throne, he knelt down to receive the pontifical 
benediction, but Alexander raised him in his arms, and 
presented to him the Golden Rose, the highest and most 
distinguished honor that a layman coidd receive from the 
hands of the sovereign Pontiff. 

The Great Captain now returned to Naples, into which 
city he made an entry scarcely less splendid than that 
into Rome; and he received at the hands of Frederic 
more substantial honors than those of a golden rose, in 
the shape of the dukedom of Santangelo, with a fief of 
two towns and seven dependent villages in the Abruzzo. 
From Naples the new duke sailed for Sicily, which was 
then in a state of open insurrection, in consequence of the 
oppressive rule of Giovanni di Nuccia, the Neapolitan 
viceroy. By the intervention of Gonsalvo, the inhabi- 
tants were satisfied to return to their allegiance; and or- 
der was restored, without the shedding of a single drop 
of blood. After some further services to the state, and 
to the cause of peace, services both diplomatic and mili- 
tary, in Naples, in Sicily and in Calabria, adding in every 
case to his reputation as a soldier and a statesman, and 
above all as a great Castilian gentleman, Gonsalvo re- 



THEIE CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 131 

turned to his native Spain, where he was reoeived with 
the applause and respect that is not always granted to 
great men by their own sovereigns, or even 1^ their own 
countrymen. 

His last service to King Frederic and his people, ere 
he quitted the coimtry, was no less honorable than wise. 
Frederic was engaged in the siege of the last dty in the 
kingdom of Naples that refused to recognize the dominion 
of Aragon, the ancient and noble city of IKano, whose 
inhabitants, vassals of that Prince of Salerno who was 
attached to the Angevin cause, refused to listeii to the 
terms which were proposed. GkmsalvD took charge <€ 
the operations; and the citizens, convinced of the hope- 
lessness of holding out any longer against so vigorous a 
commander, surrendered a few da3^ afterward at discre* 
tion. Gk)nsalvo, whether touched at their bravery and 
their forlorn condition, or merely being adverse from se- 
verity for which he saw no reason, obtained from ilia 
king favorable terms for the garrison. 

The expulsion of the French from Naples put an end, 
as might have been supposed, to The Most Holy League. 
For the high contracting parties, finding themselves se- 
cure from immediate danger, conceived themselves no 
longer bound by its provisions. Maximilian, ever pemii- 
less and generally faithless, had made no attempt to en* 
gage in any operations on the French frontier, nor had 
any one of the allies contributed to defray the heavy 
charges incurred by the Spanish sovereigns in fulfilling 
their part of the agreement. The Venetians were rather 
occupied in securing for themselves as much of the Nea- 
politan territory as they could acquire, by way of indenmi- 



132 HIS70RY OF SPAIN. 

fication for their own expenses. The Duke of Milan had 
already made a separate treaty with Charles VIII. Each 
member of the league, in fact, after the first alarm had 
subsided, had shown himself ready to sacrifice the com- 
mon cause to his own private advantage; and Ferdinand 
of Aragon, who had already suspended his operations on 
the frontiers of Spain in October, 1496, had no difficulty 
in agreeing to a further truce as regarded Naples and 
Italy, which was signed on the 5th of March, 1497. 

The Spaniards had borne the entire burden of the late 
war. They had been virtually abandoned by their allies, 
and their unassisted operations had led to the defiverance 
of Naples, to the safety of the Italian States, and the 
humiliation and the defeat of the French. Their imme- 
diate objects having been thus happily accomplished, Fer- 
dinand and Isabella proposed to Charles VIII., without 
shame or hesitation, that the French and Spaniards should 
enter into an immediate treaty of alliance, with a view to 
drive out the reigning sovereign of Naples, and divide 
his kingdom between themselves! Meanwhile the Cas- 
tilian envoy to the Holy See endeavored to induce Alex- 
ander VI. to withhold the investiture of his kingdom 
from Frederic, the new sovereign of Naples, on the 
ground that he was friendly to the Angevin party in 
Italy, the hereditary enemies of Spain. But Alexander 
paid no heed to Garcilaso de la Vega. Charles showed 
himself not only willing but eager to treat with Fer- 
nando de Estrada; but unwilling at once to abandon all 
his claims to Italian sovereignty, he offered to cede Na- 
varre to Ferdinand, and keep all Naples to himself. Pro- 
posals and counter proposals thus passed between France 



THEIR CATHOLIC MAJESTIES. 133 

and Spain; but before any definite programme had been 
agreed to, the negotiations were cut short by the sudden 
death of the French monarch, in the tennis court at Am- 
boise, on the eve of Easter, 1498. 

The success of the Spanish arms under Gonsalvo de 
Cordova in Italy was but the beginning of a long career 
of triumph. From the great victory at Seminara, in 1603, 
to the great defeat of Rocroy, in 1648, the Spanish in- 
fantry remained unconquered in Europe. The armies of 
Castile had been, indeed, as Prescott has it, "cooped up 
within the narrow limits of the Peninsula, uninstructed 
and taking little interest in the concerns of the rest of 
Europe." But the soldiers and sailors of Aragon and 
Catalonia had fought with distinction, not only in Italy 
and in Sicily, but in the furthest east of Europe, for two 
hundred years before the Great Captain of the United 
Kingdom set foot on the shores of Calabria. Yet the 
victories of GU>nsalyo were the beginning of a new era, 
and his life is interesting, not only as that of a brave sol- 
dier and an accomplished general, who flourished at a 
very important period of the history of Europe; but it is 
further and much more interesting as being the history 
of a man who united in himself many of the character* 
istics of ancient and modem civilization, and who him- 
self appears as a sort of middle term between medieval 
and modern times. 

In personal valor, in knightly courtesy, in gaudy dis- 
play, he was of his own time. In astute generalship, and 
in still more astute diplomacy, an envoy not an adven- 
turer, the servant and not the rival of kings, he belongs 
to a succeeding age, when the leader of a victorious army 



134 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

is prouder to be a loyal subject than a rash rebel. The 
Castilian lords of earlier days had ever been brave Iniights; 
their followers had ever been hardy and iintiring combat- 
ants. But Gonsalvo was not only a tactician, but a strat- 
egist. The men whom he commanded were soldiers. 
Newly armed and admirably disciplined, the regiments 
were no longer the followers of some powerful nobleman; 
they formed a part of the national army of Spain. The 
short sword of their Celtiberian ancestors was once more 
found in their hands. The long lances of the Swiss mer- 
cenaries were adopted with conspicuous success. The drill- 
sergeant took the place of the minstrel in the camp. 

Nor was this revolution in the art of war confined to 
the conduct of the Spanish troops in the field. Before 
the close of the campaign a national mihtia, or rather 
a standing army, had taken the place of the brave but 
irregular levies of medieval Spain. A royal ordinance 
regulated the equipment of every individual, according 
to his property. A man's arms were declared free from 
seizure for debt, even by the Crown, and smiths and other 
artificers were restricted, under severe penalties, from work- 
ing up weapons of war into articles of more pacific use. 
In 1426 a census was taken of all persons capable of bear- 
ing arms; and by an ordinance issued at Valladolid, on 
February 22d of the same year, it was provided that one 
out of every twelve inhabitants, between twenty and forty- 
five years of age, should be enlisted for the service of 
the State, whether in the conduct of a foreign war or 
the suppression of domestic disorder. 



CHAPTER VII 

UNITED SPAIN 

THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEW WORLD— VASCO DA GAMA— 

THE ROYAL MARRIAGES — DREAMS OF EMPIRE— THE 

DEATH OF ISABELLA — FERDINAND'S END 

The reign of Ferdinand and Isabella was made imme- 
morial through Columbus and his discovery. The maa 
and the event will, in subsequent chapters, be considered 
at length. For the present it will suffice to note that on 
his return from the New "World, after being loaded with 
honors, a question arose as to Isabella's right to confer the 
dignities thus bestowed — Portugal claiming the territory hf 
reason of an anterior grant from the Pope, who, in commcm 
with all other parties, believed it to be part of India. 

The question was referred to a Junta of learned men of 
both nations, at the same time that application was made 
to the reigning Pope, Alexander VI., concerning it. The 
junta decided that the discoveries of Columbus were not in- 
cluded in the Portuguese grant; and his Holiness finally, 
as he conceived, terminated the dispute by drawing a line 
across the Altantic, from pole to pole, and adjudging all 
lands discovered on the east of that line to Portugal, all on 
the west to Castile. 

In connection with this it should be noted that in 1497 
Manuel of Portugal sent Yasoo da Gama with three ships 
to double the Cape of Good Hope, with a view to ta{^>ing 

(135) 



136 HISTORY OF SPAIN 

India. In the month of November, Gama successfully 
doubled the formidable Cape, and sailed up the eastern 
coast of Africa, as far as Mozambique. Here he found 
a Moor from Fez, who, acting as interpreter between 
him and the natives, facilitated the conclusion of a treaty, 
in virtue of which the King of Mozambique was to furnish 
the adventurous navigators with pilots well acquainted with 
the course to India. But, while they were taking in wood 
and water, a quarrel arose with the natives, to whom the 
fault is of course imputed. The pilots made their escape, 
and hostilities ensued. They did not last long; the terrors 
of the Portuguese firearms soon compelling the Africans to 
submit. Another, and, as the king assured Gama, a better 
pilot was supplied, and on the 1st of April, 1498, he sailed 
from Mozambique. The new pilot proved quite as ill-dis- 
posed as his predecessors, endeavoring to betray the fleet 
into the power of his countrymen at Mombaza; and being 
alarmed with apprehensions of detection, by the bustle ap- 
parent in the crew of Gama's ship, which had accidentally 
grounded, he also made his escape. It was not till they 
reached Melinda that they found really friendly natives. 
From that port Gama at last obtained a pilot who steered 
him right across the gulf to the coast of Malabar. 

The first place in India made by the Portuguese was 
Calecut. Here Gama announced himself as an embassador 
gent by the King of Portugal to negotiate a treaty of alli- 
ance with the sovereign, the zamorin of Calecut, one of the 
most powerful princes of that part of Hindustan, to estab- 
lish commercial relations, and to convert the natives to 
Christianity. How far this last object of his mission was 
agreeable to the bigoted Hindus, or the equally bigoted 



UNITED SPAIN, 137 

Mohammedan conquerors, who were then the masters of 
those wealthy regions, we are not distinctly told by the 
Portuguese historians ; but the zamorin appears in the first 
instance to have received Gama well, and been upon the 
whole pleased with his visit. This friendly intercourse was 
interrupted, as we are assured, by the intrigues of the Moors 
or Arabs, who, being in possession of the pepper trade, and 
indeed of the whole spice trade, were jealous of interlopers. 
Quarrels arose, and some acts of violence were committed. 
They ended, however, in Gama's gaining the advantage, 
and friendship was restored between him and the zamorin. 
He reached Portugal in July, 1499, after a two years* 
voyage, and was, like Columbus in Spain, loaded with 
honors. 

We may now return to Ferdinand and Isabella. This 
was the brightest period of their lives. The repulse of 
Charles VIII., and the victories of Gonsalvo, added fresh 
luster to their reign. Moreover, through measures then 
imdertaken, the unconverted Moors were subdued, and 
the French provinces were regained; but, over and 
above all, a new world had been discovered, and mar- 
riages, seemingly the most fortunate, were concluded: 
Ferdinand and Isabella's son and heir, Don John, hav- 
ing married the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian; 
their second daughter Joanna, Philip, the son and heir 
of that monarch, by Mary of Burgundy, and already, in 
right of his deceased mother, sovereign of the rich and 
fertile Netherlands; the third, Katharine, was affianced to 
Arthur, Prince of Wales; and Manuel, duke of Beja, 
having succeeded to his cousin John II. of Portugal, de- 
^te all intrigues in favor of the illegitimate Don George, 



138 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

solicited and obtained the hand of the eldest T"^^"^-«^ ^lA 
widow of the Prince of Portugal. 

The first to be celebrated of all these royal marriages 
was that of the Princess Isabella with Alfonso, the heir to 
the crown of Portugal, which took place in the autumn of 
the year 1490, and which was apparently calculated to lead 
to the happiest results. But the magnificent wedding fes- 
tivities at Lisbon were scarce concluded when the bride- 
groom died, and the widowed princess returned disoonaolate 
to her mother (January, 1491). 

The marriage of John, prince of Asturias, was the next, 
and apparently the most important alliance that engaged 
the attention of his parents ; and, moved by many consid- 
erations of policy and prestige, they turned their thoughts 
to far-away Flanders. Maximilian of Hapsburg, the titu- 
lar sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire, had, by his first 
wife, Mary, a daughter of Charles the Bold, and in hor 
own right Duchess of Burgundy, been made the father of 
two children, Philip, born in 1478, and Margacet, in 1480. 
Their mother, the beautiful empress, died in 1483; and 
Philip, on attaining his legal majority at the age of six- 
teen, assimied, in her right, the government of the Low 
Countries in 1494. It was with this youthful sovereign, 
the heir to yet more splendid possessions, that the Catholic 
sovereigns desired to unite their younger daughter in mar* 
riage, while the hand of his sister Margaret was sought for 
the Prince of Asturias. The advantages to Spain ctf such 
a double marriage were enormous. 

If Prince John were to marry the Archduchess Mar« 
garet, the only daughter of the emperor, he would inherit, 
in the event of the death of the Archduke Philip without 



UNITED SPAIN, 139 

issue, the great possessions of the Hapsburgs, Austria, 
Flanders, and Burgundy, with a claim to the empire that 
had eluded his great ancestor, Alfonso X. That the Arch- 
duke Philip shobld in his turn espouse, not Isabella, the 
eldest, but Joanna, the second daughter of the Catholic 
king, would prevent Spain from passing under the domin- 
ion of Austria, even in the unlikely event of the death of 
Prince John without issue, inasmuch as Isabella of Portu- 
gal would, in such a case, inherit the Spanish crown, to 
the prejudice of her younger sister in Flanders. And 
finally, if all the young wives and husbands should live 
to a reasonable age, and should leave children behind them 
at their death, one grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella 
would wear the imperial purple as lord of Central Europe, 
and another would sit upon the throne of a great united 
Peninsular kingdom of Castile, Portugal, and Aragon. 

In the early autumn of 1496 (August 22), a splendid 
fleet set out from Laredo, a little port between Bilbao and 
Santander, which carried Joanna in safety to her expectant 
bridegroom. The archduke, and the princess for whom so 
sad a fate was reserved, were married at Lille with the 
usual rejoicings; and the Spanish admiral, charged a sec- 
ond time with a precious freight of marriageable royalty, 
brought back the Lady Margaret of Hapsburg with all 
honor to Spanish Santander, early in March, 1497. The 
marriage of the heir apparent took place at Burgos, on the 
3d of April ; and on the 4th of October of the same year, 
the gentle and accomplished Prince of Asturias had passed 
away from Spain, and from the world. 

Yet, once again, and for a few months, there lived an 
heir to United Spain, whose brief existence is scarce re- 



140 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

membered in history. Isabella, the widowed queen c^ 
John II. of Portugal, had been persuaded or constrained 
by her parents to contract a second marriage with her 
husband's cousin and successor Emmanuel; but the price 
of her hand was the price of blood. For it was stipulated 
that the Jews, who, by the liberality of the late king, had 
been permitted to find a home in his dominions, should be 
driven out of the country after the stem Castilian fashion 
of 1492, ere the widowed Isabella should wed her cousin 
on the throne of Portugal. "Whether the princess was an 
apt pupil, or merely the slave of her mother and the In- 
quisitor that lurked behind the throne, we cannot say, but 
the Portuguese lover consented to the odious bargain. The 
marriage was solemnized at Valencia de Alcantara, in the 
early days of the month of August, 1497, and the stipu- 
lated Tribute to Bigotry was duly paid. But before ever 
the bridal party had left the town, an express had arrived 
with the news of the mortal illness of the bride's only 
brother; and in little more than a year the young queen 
herself, in the 23d of August, 1498, expired in giving birth 
to a son. The boy received the name of Miguel, and lived 
for nearly two years — the heir apparent of Portugal, of 
Aragon, and of Castile — until he too was involved in the 
general destruction. 

But some time before the death, or even before the 
birth of Miguel, another royal marriage had been con- 
eluded, whose results throughout all time were no less 
remarkable and scarce less important than that which 
handed over Spain to a Flemish emperor. For after in- 
finite negotiations and more than one rupture, after some 
ten years' huxtering about dowry, and a dozen changes of 



UNITED SPAIN, 141 

policy on the part of the various sovereigns interested in 
the alliance, Katharine, the youngest daughter of Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella, more familiarly known as Katharine 
of Aragon, had been married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, 
and the first act had been concluded of that strange and 
fateful drama that led to the Reformation in England. 

The dignified sadness of her story as Queen Katharine 
— ^insulted, divorced, and abandoned — the unwilling hero- 
ine of the great tragic drama that was played in the reign 
of Henry VIII. of England, is known to all men, who ex- 
tend to her, with one consent, their pity and their respect. 
But those only who know something of the seven dreary 
and disgraceful years that she spent in the palace of her 
father-in-law, before she was permitted to know, even for 
a season, the happiness of a husband's love, or to enjoy 
the great position of Queen of England, may alone imder- 
stand the fuUness of the measure of her wretchedness. 

In June, 1504, Isabella, who had for some time been 
ailing, and who seems to havB suffered from some nerv- 
ous disease, was struck down suddenly by fever. She 
had lived a hard life. She had never spared herself, or 
others. The unhappy marriages of her children had cast 
a dark shadow over her life. But hers was not the nat- 
ure to repine. Diligent, abstemious, resolute, she had 
borne pain and suffering, and she was not afraid to face 
death. Unable at length to rise from her couch, as the 
autumn drew to a close, she continued to transact her ac- 
customed business, gave audience to embassadors, chatted 
with privileged visitors, and, in the words of an astonished 
stranger, governed the world from her bed. 

At last, on the 26th of November, 1504, as the church 



142 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

bells of Medina del Campo were ringing out the hour of 
noon, the spirit of Isabella of Castile flitted away from 
this world; and her mortal remains were conducted by 
a mournful company to their last resting place under the 
shadow of the red towers of Alhambra. Through storm 
and tempest, amid earthquake and inundation, across moun- 
tain and river, the affrighted travelers wended their way. 
For the sun was not seen by day nor the stars by night, 
during three long and weary weeks, as if the very forces 
of nature were disturbed at the death of a giant among 
the princes of the earth. 

The character of Isabella has suffered to an uncom- 
mon extent from an ignorant glorification of virtues that 
she was far from possessing, and the concealment of those^ 
transcendent powers that made her not only one of the 
greatest rulers of Spain, but one of the greatest women 
in the history of the world. Until the opening of the 
treasure-house at Simancas displayed her correspondence 
to the world, she was only known from the extravagant 
but somewhat colorless panegyrics of contemporary chron- 
iclers, who recognized at least that she was a royal lady, 
compelling their gallant admiration, and that she was 
immensely superior to her husband, whom it was neces- 
sary also to glorify, as the last Spanish sovereign of 
Spain. 

Isabella was one of the most remarkable characters in 
history. Not only was she the most masterful, and, from 
her own point of view, by far the most successful ruler 
that ever sat upon the throne of Spain, or of any of the 
kingdoms of the Peninsula; she stands in the front rank 
of the great sovereigns of Europe, and challenges com- 



UNITED SPAIN. 143 

parison with the greatest women who have ever held 
sway in the world. A reformer and a zealot, an auto- 
crat and a leader of men, with a handsome face and a 
gracious manner, scarce concealing the iron will that lay 
beneath, Isabella was patient in adversity, dignified in 
prosperity, at all times quiet, determined, thorough. 

In one particular she stands alone among the great 
ruling women, the conquerors and empresses of history. 
She is the only royal lady, save, perhaps, Maria Theresa 
of Hungary, who maintained through life the incongruous 
relations of a masterful sovereign and a devoted wife, 
and shared not only her bed but her throne with a hus- 
band whom she respected — a fellow-sovereign whom she 
neither feared nor disregarded. To command the obe- 
dience of a proud and warlike people is given to few of 
the great men of history. To do the bidding of another 
with vigor and with discretion is a task that has been but 
rarely accomplished by a heaven-bom minister. But to 
conceive and carry out great designs, with one hand in 
the grasp of even the most loyal of companions, is a tri- 
umphant combination of energy with discretion, of the 
finest tact with the most indomitable resolution, that 
stamps Isabella of Spain as a being more vigorous than 
the greatest men, more discreet than the greatest women 
of history. Semiramis, Zenobia, Boadicea, Elizabeth of 
England, Catherine of Russia, not one of them was em- 
barrassed by a partner on the throne. The partner of 
Isabella was not only a husband but a king, jealous, rest- 
less, and untrustworthy. It is in this respect, and in the 
immense scope of her political action, that the great Queen 
of Castile is comparable with the bold Empress-King of 



144 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

Hungary rather than with any other of the great queens 
and royal ladies of history. 

The husband of Zenobia indeed enjoyed the title of 
Augustus; but it was only after his assassination that 
the lady earned her fame as a ruler. Catherine caused 
her imperial consort to be executed as a preliminary to 
her vigorous reign in Russia; Boadicea was the successor 
and not the colleague of Prasutagus; and Semiramis, 
though herself somewhat a mythical personage, is said 
to have slain both her husband and his rival, in her as- 
sertion of her absolute power. Yet Isabella revolution- 
ized the institutions of her country, religious, political, 
military, financial, she consolidated her dominions, hu- 
miliated her nobles, cajoled her Commons, defied the Pope, 
reformed the clergy; she burned some ten thousand of 
her subjects; she deported a million more; and of the 
remnant she made a great nation; she brooked no man's 
opposition, in a reign of thirty years, and she died in the 
arms of the king, her husband! 

Ferdinand of Aragon was no hero. But he was a 
strong man; a capable ruler; a clever if a treacherous 
diplomatist. And to this husband and consort was Isa- 
bella faithful through life, not merely in the grosser sense 
of the word, to which Ferdinand for himself paid so little 
heed; but in every way and walk of life. She supported 
him in his policy; she assisted him in his intrigues; she 
encouraged him in his ambitious designs; she lied for 
him, whenever prudence required it; she worked for him 
at all times, as she worked for Spain. For his policy, his 
intrigues, his designs were all her own. Whenever the 
views of the king and queen were for a moment discord- 



UNITED SPAIN. 145 

ftnt, Isabella prevailed, without apparent oonfliot of author- 
ity. In her assumption of supremacy in the marriage con- 
tract; in her nomination of Gk>nsalvo de Cordova to the 
command of the army; in her choice of Ximenez as the 
Primate of Spain, she carried her point, not by petulance 
or even by argument, but by sheer force of character; nor 
did she strain for one moment, even in these manifeeta* 
tions of her royal supremacy, the friendly and even affeo* 
tionate relations that ever subsisted between herself and 
her husband. The love and devotion of Isabella was a 
thing of which the greatest of men might have well been 
proud. And though Ferdinand the Catholic may not 
fairly be counted among the greatest, he was a man 
wise enough to appreciate the merits of his queen, and 
to accept and maintain the anomalous position in which 
he found himself as her consort. 

In war at least it might have been supposed that the 
-\ueen would occupy a subordinate posdticHi. Tet to no 
department of State did Isabella show to greater advan- 
tage than as the organizer of victorious armies; not as a 
batallador after the fashion of her distinguished anoeetors 
in Castile and in Aragon; but as the originator of an 
entirely new system of military administration. 

Before her time, in Spain, war had been waged by the 
great nobles and their retainers in attendance upcxi the 
king. There was no such thing as uniformity of action 
or preparation, no central organization of any kind. BacA 
man went into battle to fight and to forage as oppcnrtoni^ 
offered. Each commander vied with his fellow nobles in 
deeds of bravery, and accorded to them such support as he 
chose. The sovereign exercised a general autbori^, and 



146 HISTORY OP SPAIN. 

assumed the active command of the united multitude of 
soldiers, on rare and important occasions. If victory fol- 
lowed, as at the Navas de Tolosa, the soldiers were re- 
warded with the plunder, and took possession of the prop- 
erty of the enemy. If the Christians were defeated, the 
army melted away; and the king betook himself to the 
nearest shelter. 

But Isabella had no sooner assumed the title of Queen 
of Castile, than she was called upon to maintain her pre- 
tensions in the field. With no experience but that of a 
country palace, with no training but that of a country 
cloister, she set herself to work to organize an army. On 
the 1st of May, 1474, five hundred horsemen represented 
the entire forces of the fair usurper. By the 19th of July 
she had collected over forty thousand men, had armed 
and equipped them ready for the field, and had sent them 
forward under the command of Ferdinand to the frontier. 
Although she was at the time in delicate health, she was 
constantly in the saddle, riding long distances from fort- 
ress to fortress, hurrying up recruits all day, dictating 
letters all night, giving her zealous personal attention to 
every detail of armory and equipment, showing from the 
first that quiet energy and that natural aptitude for com- 
mand that ever so constantly distinguished her. That her 
levies were not victorious in no way daunted her deter- 
mination. A second army was raised by her, within a 
few weeks after the first had melted away under Ferdi- 
nand; nor would she listen to any offers of negotiation, 
tmtil the enemy had been driven out of Castile. 

In the conduct of the war of Granada, with time and 
money at her command, her preparations were upon a 



UNITED SPAJK 147 

Tery different scale. The most skillful artificers were 
summoned from every part of Europe to assist in the 
work of supplying the army with the necessary material 
of war. Artillery, then almost unknown to the military 
art, was manufactured in Spain according to the best de* 
signs. Model cannon were imported, and the necessary 
ammunition collected from abroad. Sword-blades were 
forged at home. Kot only a commissariat, but a field 
hospital — ^institutions till then imheard of in Spanish war^ 
fare — were organized and maintained under the personal 
supervision of the queen. The presence of a lady on the 
day of battle would, as a rule, as she rightly judged, 
have been rather a hinderanoe than a help; but she was 
very far from being a mere commissioner of supply. A 
first-rate horsewoman, she was ocmstantly seen riding 
about the camp, encouraging, inspecting, directing; and 
in the last days of the siege of Granada, wh^i the spirits 
<^ the troops had begun to flag, she a{^)eared daily in 
complete armor, and showed herself vagaa more than one 
occasion in a post of danger on the field. The armies with 
which Gbnsalvo de Cknrdoa overran Calabria, and anni- 
hilated the French at Cerigncda, were prepared and dis- 
patched by Isabella; and if , in a subsequent campaign, 
the Great Captain was left without supplies or re-enforce- 
ments, it was that the queen was already sickening to her 
death, broken down and worn out by her constant and 
enormous exertions. 

But with all her aptitude for military organization, 
Isabella had no love for war. Her first campaign was 
undertaken to make good her pretensions to the crown. 
The eicterminatiQn of the Moslems was a matter of reliy- 



X48 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

ious feeling and patriotic pride, rather than an object of 
military glory; but she refused to pursue her conquest 
across the Straits of Gibraltar. The expeditions to Italy 
were a part of Ferdinand's diplomacy, though the honor 
of victory must be shared between Isabella and her Great 
Oo-ptain. But the queen's ambition lay not in conquest 
abroad. On the contrary, as soon as the last province in 
Spain had been delivered from the foreign yoke of the 
Moor, she turned her attention to the peaceful develop- 
ment of the kingdom; and, unlettered warrior as she 
was, she bestowed her royal patronage upon students 
and studies, rather than upon the knights and nobles 
who had fought her battles before Granada. 

The old foundations of the Universities, the new art of 
printing, scholarship, music, architecture found in her a 
generous patron, not so much from predilection as from 
policy. Men of letters and men of learning were wel- 
comed at her court, not only from every part of Spain, 
but from every part of Europe. For herself she had lit- 
tle appreciation of literature. She neither knew nor cared 
what influence her beloved Inquisition would have upon 
science. But as long as the queen lived, learning was 
honored in Spain. 

In this, as in all other things, hep judgment of men 
was unerring. The queen who made Gonsalvo the com- 
mander-in-chief of her armies, and Ximenez the president 
of her council, who selected Torquemada as her grand in- 
quisitor, and Talavera as her archbishop of Granada, made 
no mistake when she invited Peter Martyr to instruct her 
son in polite letters, and commissioned Lebrija to compose 
the first Castiliau Grammar for the use of her court. 



UNITED SPAIN. 149 

Her beauty of face and form are familiar. Yet vanity 
was unknown to her nature. Simple and abstemious in 
her daily life, and despising pomp for its own sake, no 
one could make a braver show on fitting occasions; and 
the richness of her apparel, the glory of her jewels, and 
the noble dignity of her presence, have been celebrated by 
subjects and strangers. 

At the death of Isabella, Ferdinand, in accordance with 
the provisions of her will, caused his daughter, Joanna, 
to be proclaimed queen and himself regent. Philip, arch- 
duke of Austria, the husband of Joanna, having disputed 
the rights of his father-in-law and threatened an appeal 
to arms, the latter in disgust, with the view of again sepa- 
rating the crowns of Aragon and Castile, entered into ne- 
gotiations with Louis XII., married Gbrmaine de Foix, 
the niece of Louis (1505), and shortly afterward resigned 
the regency of Castile. On the death of Philip, in 1506, 
he resumed the administration, though not without opposi- 
tion, and retained it till his death. In 1508 he joined the 
League of Cambray for the partition of Venice, and thus 
without any trouble became master of five important Ne- 
apolitan cities. In the following year (1509) the Africa^ 
expedition of Cardinal Ximenez was undertaken, which 
resulted in the conquest of Oran. In 1511 Ferdinand joined 
Venice and Pope Julius II. in a **holy league" for the ex- 
pulsion of the French from Italy. This gave a pretext for 
invading Navarre, which had entered into alliance with 
France, and been laid under Papal interdict in conse- 
quence. Aided by his son-in-law Henry VIII. of Eng- 
land, who sent a squadron imder the Marquis of Dorset 
to oo-operate in the descent on Guienne, Ferdinand became 



150 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

master of Navarre in 1613; and on June 15, 1615, by a 
solemn act in Cortes held at Burgos, he incorporated it 
with the kingdom of Castile. 

The League of Cambray, which was signed on the 10th 
of December, 1508, between Louis XII., the Emperor Maxi- 
milian, and Ferdinand of Aragon, at the instance of the 
warUke Pope Julius II., was nominally directed against 
the Turks, but was in reality a coalition for the destruc- 
tion and partition among the oonfiscators of the rich State 
of Venice. If anything was wanted to make this league 
of public plunderers more corrupt and more odious than it 
would imder any circumstances have been, it was that the 
kings of France and of Aragon, in order to secure the ad« 
hesion of the Medicis, sacrifioed their faithful allies, the 
Pisans, after solemn assurances of protection and support, 
and actually sold that ancient city to the Florentines, their 
hereditary enemies, for a hundred thousand ducats. 

But all thdr bad faith and oovetousness was d]^)layod 
in vain. The perfidious leaguers could not even trust one 
another; and the suooess of the French arms at Agnadel, 
in May, 1509, so seriously alarmed both Julius and Ferdi* 
nand that a second treaty was concluded in October, 1511» 
when the Pope and the King of Aragon invited the Vene- 
tian Republic, tar whose destruction they had leagued them- 
selves together with Louis XII. not three years before, td 
assist them in driving the French out of Italy. 

Of the consummate skill with which Ferdinand, from 
the middle of 1509 to the end of 1511, played off his allies 
and rivals one against the other, until he had accomplished 
the central object of his diplomacy in the great CJonfedera- 
tion against Louis XII., we may read in the history of 



UNITED SPAIN, 151 

Francse and of Italy, of England and of Germany, rather 
than in the Chronicles of Aragon. For King Ferdinand 
palled the strings that moved the puppets, while he re- 
mained wellnigh hidden himself. But by the end of 1511 
the showman was compelled to make his own appearance 
upon the stage of European warfare; and Ferdinand was 
ever less successful as an actor than as an impresario. His 
policy for the past two years had been the formation of a 
league against his dearly-beloved uncle-in-law, Louis XII., 
hj the aid of his dearly-beloved son-in-law, Henry VIII. 
Queen Katharine, who had already played the part of em* 
bassador to her English father-in-law, was to make use of 
her influence over her English husband; and if the queen 
should refuse to advise King Henry to go to war with 
France, her confessor was to tell her that she was bound 
as a good Christian to do so. 

To coerce the confessor, Ferdinand applied to the Pope; 
and to control the Pope, he betrayed to him, in secret, the 
whole scheme of King Louis XII. as regarded the plunder 
of the States of the Church. It is easy to imderstand what 
an effect the communication of the French king's plans of 
spoliation produced upon the excitable and irascible Julius. 
When he had learned that he was not only to be robbed 
of his temporalities, but that he was to be deposed and 
imprisoned in case he should prove spiritually intractable, 
he hastened, in spite of his age and his infirmities, to trav- 
erse the snow-covered mountains, that he might meet his 
enemy in the field. 

The King of Aragon was a diplomatist who left nothing 
to chance. He trusted no man. And if no man trusted 
him, he never deceived himself by supposing that any one 



U% EJSTORJ OF SPAIN, 

was simple enough to do so. 'No detail, however trifling, 
was neglected by him in his negotiations. No contingency, 
however remote, was left out of sight in his intrigues. And 
however little we may respect his character, which was per- 
haps not much worse than that of some of his rivals, we 
cannot refuse to admire his transcendent skill, his infinite 
persevenmee, his forethought, and his keen appreciation 
of every shade of political development. A little honesty 
would have made him a great man, a little generosity would 
have made him a great king. His policy, moreover, to- 
ward the close of his life, Is at least worthy of an admira* 
iion which has rarely been extended to it. It was a policy 
which embraced all Europe in its eoope; and although it 
had no direct relatkm to Spain or the Spanish people^ it 
would be ill to conclude even a bri^ survey of the history 
of Spain without r^errlng to the imperial dreams of the 
great Spaniard, first of modem diplomatists, and (d his 
early endeavors to solve more than aae of those questions 
that still embarrass the fordgn policy of modem States: 
the establishment c^ a kingdom d Italy; the alliance be- 
tween Italy and Germany, to withstand a dreaded power 
beyond the Danube and the Carpathians; the entangle- 
ment of England in a central European league; and the 
treatment of the Pope of Home. 

The Turks, the medieval bugbear in the East — ^for the 
Middle Ages had also their Eastern Question — ^were at this 
time rapidly encroaching upon Christian Europe; and it 
was obviously desirable to form a powerful empire, as a 
bulwark of Christendom, on the banks of the Danube. The 
opportunity of founding a great empire in central Europe 
actually existed. Ladislaus II., king of Bohemia and of 



UNITED SPAIN. 153 

Hungary, had only one son, Louis, who was of so delicate 
a constitution that no issue could be expected of his mar- 
riage. In case he should die without children, his sister, 
the Princess Anne, was the heiress of both his kingdoms; 
and if her father could be persuaded to marry her to the 
heir of the Austrian principalities, Bohemia, Austria, and 
Hungary, thus united with the heritage of the Hapsburgs, 
would form by no means a contemptible State, which might 
itself be but the nucleus of a greater and more ambitious 
empire. 

Naples, which had so lately been added to the Spanish 
dominions, was still exposed to the attacks of the French, 
who claimed one-half, and were always ready to appro- 
priate to themselves the whole of the kingdom. Naples 
was separated from France, indeed, by a considerable ex- 
tent of territory in Italy; but the smaller Italian States 
were too weak to render any serious resistance, and too 
fickle to be counted upon as friends or as foes by any 
Spanish sovereign. The best way to render Naples secure 
was, in the eyes of Ferdinand, the foundation of a great 
kingdom in northern Italy, powerful enough to prevent 
the French from marching their armies to the south. The 
formation of such a kingdom moreover would have greatly 
facilitated a peaceful division of the great Austro-Spanish 
inheritance between Prince Charles and his brother, the 
Infante Ferdinand. 

If Charles could be provided not only with the kingdom 
of Spain, but with the possessions of Maximilian and Ladis- 
laus and the Princess Anne, and the empire of central 
Europe, his younger brother Ferdinand might content him- 
self with a kingdom to be made up of all the States of 



164 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

Italy, protected against the encroachments of France by 
Spanish infantry and German landsknechts, and ready to 
drive the Turk out of the Mediterranean in support of the 
Christian empire on the Danube. 

The kingdom of Italy, thus designed for his younger 
grandson by the far-seeing Ferdinand of Aragon, was to 
consist of Genoa, Pavia, Milan, and the Venetian terri- 
tories on the mainland. The country of the Tyrol, being 
the most southern of the Austrian dominions, could, with- 
out sensibly weakening the projected empire, be separated 
from it and added to the new kingdom in Italy. Thug 
stretching from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, and 
from the Gulf of Spezia to the Lake of Constance, this six- 
teenth century kingdom of Italy, with the whole power of 
the Holy Roman Empire to support it, would have been a 
splendid endowment for a younger son of the greatest fam- 
ily on earth. There was also a reasonable prospect that it 
might afterward be still further enlarged by the addition 
of Naples, and the smaller Italian States would easily have 
fallen a prey to their powerful neighbor. But in addition 
to all this, Ferdinand thought that he would render a not- 
able service to the Catholic religion and to the peace of 
Europe if the Church were thoroughly reformed. "What 
Rome herself has lost by Ferdinand's failure it is not given 
even to the Infallible to know. What the king's reforms 
were to be, we can only shrewdly surmise; and although 
they would most assuredly not have been Protestant, they 
would with equal certainty have been by no means pala- 
table to the Vatican. For it is reasonably probable that if 
either Louis XII. or Ferdinand the Catholic had been per- 
mitted to carry out their designs, the Pope of Rome would 



UNITED SPAIN, 165 

have found himself deprived of his temporal power, and 
Garibaldi, nay, perchance Luther, would have been fore- 
stalled. It was the reforms of Ximenez that to a large 
extent prevented Luther in Spain. The reforms of Fer- 
dinand might possibly have prevented him in Italy. 

It was in 1516 that Ferdinand died. Seven years pre- 
vious Queen Germaine had been delivered of a son, who 
received from his parents the name of John. But the curse 
that lay upon the children of Ferdinand was not yet spent; 
and the rival of Charles V., the heir of Aragon, Sardinia, 
Naples, and Sicily, was permitted to gladden the envious 
heart of his father by but a few hours of Hfe. As years 
passed on there seemed little chance of any further issue 
of the King and Queen of Aragon. The unity of Spain ai 
length appeared to be secure. But the ambition of Ferdi- 
nand was even surpassed by his jealousy. Childless, vin- 
dictive, and obstinate, he chafed at the ill-success of his 
personal schemes; and rather than suffer the crown of 
united Spain to pass over to his daughter's son and heir, 
he sought, at the hands of some medical impostor, the 
powers that were denied to his old age. The drug that 
was to have renewed his youth destroyed his constitution, 
and his death was the direct result of one of the least 
creditable of the many developments of his jealousy, his 
obstinacy, and his selfishness. 

At length came the inevitable end; and at the wretched 
hamlet of Madrigalejo, near Guadalupe, in the mountains 
of Estremadura, on the 23d of January of the new year 
1516, Ferdinand died; and Spain was at length a United 
KingdonL 



CHAPTER VIII 

MODERN SPAIN 

THE HOUSE OF HAPSBURG — PHILIP II. —DEFEAT OF THE 

INVINCIBLE ARMADA — A BOURBON AMONG THEM 

— THE PENINSULAR WAR — ALFONSO XIII 

"With the death of Ferdinand begins the period of unin- 
terrupted Hapsburg rule in Spain, which lasted for nearly 
two centuries. In the course of this period, the monarchy 
obtained absolute authority, and Spain, after rising for a 
time to be the foremost State in Europe, sank to the posi- 
tion of a second-rate power, from which it has never since 
emerged. Aragon and Castile were distinct kingdoms, and 
the former was again divided into the three provinces of 
Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, each of which had its 
own Cortes, its own privileges, and the most warmly- 
cherished traditions of independence. The foreign pos- 
sessions of the two crowns were a source of weakness 
rather than of strength. France stood ready at the ear- 
liest opportunity to contest the possession of Navarre with 
Castile, and that of Naples with Aragon. 

The difficulties of domestic government were increased 
by the fact that the prospective ruler was a youthful for- 
eigner, who had never visited Spain, and who was com- 
pletely ignorant of the customs and even of the language 
of the country. Charles — ^the son of Philip, archduke of 

Austria, and of Jane, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella 

(156) 



MODERN SPAIN. 157 

— had been born and educated in the Netherlands, of which 
he had been nominal ruler ever since the death of his father 
in 1506. All his friends and advisers were Flemings, who 
cared nothing for Spanish interests, and had already acquired 
an evil reputation for selfish greed. The first symptom of 
discontent in Spain was excited by Charles's demand to be 
recognized as king, in utter disregard of his mother. In 
Aragon the demand was unhesitatingly refused, but in 
Castile the vigorous measures of the famous Cardinal 
Ximenez secured Charles's proclamation. The regent, 
however, had great difficulties to face. The nobles, de- 
lighted to be rid of the strong government of Ferdinand, 
wished to utilize the opportunity to regain the privileges 
and independence they had lost. In this crisis the loyal 
devotion of Ximenez saved the monarchy. Throwing him- 
self upon the support of the citizen class, he organized a 
militia which overawed the nobles and maintained order. 
A French invasion of Navarre was repulsed, and to avoid 
any danger from the discontent of the inhabitants, all the 
fortresses of the province, with the single exception of Pam- 
plona, were dismantled. These distinguished services were 
rewarded with more than royal ingratitude by Charles, who 
came to Spain in 1517, and who allowed the aged cardinal 
to die on November 8th, without even granting him an 
interview. 

Charles's enormous inheritance was increased by the 
successes of Cortes in Mexico and of Pizarro in Peru, by 
his own annexation of the Milanese, and by his conquests 
in northern Africa. 

The glory of Spain was then at its apogee. After his 
death, which occurred in 1658, the decline set in. From 



158 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

this time also the House of Hapsburg became divided into 
its contemporary branches. 

Charles was succeeded by Philip II., his only legitimate 
son. The administration of the latter, while successful at 
home, was a failure abroad. During his reign a claim to 
the throne of Portugal was successfully asserted, and the 
unity of the Peninsula was completed. Moreover, colonial 
possessions were greatly extended. Yet his religious intol- 
erance excited the revolt of the Netherlands, which resulted 
in a loss of the seven northern provinces. His effort to ob- 
tain a preponderant influence over France was dexterously 
foiled by the succession and triumph of Henry IV. But 
his great and historical defeat was that which he experi- 
enced with the Armada. 

Besides the Spanish crown, Philip succeeded to the king- 
dom of Naples and Sicily, the Duchy of Milan, Franche- 
Comte, and the Netherlands. In Africa he possessed Tunis, 
Oran, the Cape Verd, and the Canary Islands; and in Asia, 
the Philippine and Sunda Islands, and a part of the Moluc- 
cas. Beyond the Atlantic he was lord of the most splendid 
portions of the New "World. The empires of Peru and Mex- 
ico, New Spain, and Chili, with their abundant mines of 
the precious metals, Hispaniola and Cuba, and many other 
of the American islands, were provinces of the sovereign of 
Spain. 

Philip had also the advantage of finding himself at the 
head of a large standing army in a perfect state of disci- 
pline and equipment, in an age when, except some few in- 
significant corps, standing armies were unknown to Chris- 
tendom. The renown of the Spanish troops was justly high, 
and the infantry in particular was considered the best in 



MODERN SPAIN. 169 

the world. His fleet, also, was far more numerous, and 
better appointed, than that of any other European power; 
and both his soldiers and his sailors had the confidence in 
themselves and their commanders which a long career of 
successful warfare alone can create. 

One nation only had been his active, his persevering, 
and his successful foe. England had encouraged his re- 
volted subjects in Flanders against him, and given them 
the aid in men and money without which they must soon 
have been humbled in the dust. English ships had plun- 
dered his colonies; had defied his supremacy in the New 
"World, as well as the Old; they had inflicted ignominious 
defeats on his squadrons; they had captured his cities, and 
burned his arsenals on the very coasts of Spain. The En- 
glish had made Philip himself the object of personal insult. 
He was held up to ridicule in their stage plays and masks, 
and these scoffs at the man had (as is not unusual in such 
cases) excited the anger of the absolute king, even more 
vehemently than the injuries inflicted on his power. Per- 
sonal as well as political revenge urged him to attack Eng- 
land. Were she once subdued, the Dutch must submit; 
France could not cope with him, the empire would not op- 
pose him; and universal dominion seemed sure to be the 
result of the conquest of that malignant island. 

For some time the destination of an enormous arma- 
ment which he had long been preparing was not publicly 
announced. Only Philip himself, the Pope Sixtus, the 
Duke of Guise, and Philip's favorite minister, Mendoza, 
at first knew its real object. Rumors were sedulously 
spread that it was designed to proceed to the Indies to 
realize vast projects of distant conquest. Sometimes hints 



160 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

were dropped by Philip's embassadors in foreign courts 
that their master had resolved on a decisive effort to crush 
his rebels in the Low Countries. But Elizabeth and her 
statesmen could not view the gathering of such a storm 
without feeling the probability of its bursting on their own 
shores. As early as the spring of 1587, Elizabeth sent Sir 
Francis Drake to cruise off the Tagus. Drake sailed into 
the Bay of Cadiz and the Lisbon Roads, and burned much 
shipping and military stores, causing thereby an important 
delay in the progress of the Spanish preparations. Drake 
called this ** Singeing the king of Spain's beard." Eliza- 
beth also increased her succors of troops to the Netherland- 
ers, to prevent the Prince of Parma from overwhelming 
them, and from thence being at full leisure to employ his 
army against her dominions. 

Philip had an ally in France who was far more power- 
ful than the French king. This was the Duke of Guise, 
the chief of the League, and the idol of the fanatic par- 
tisans of the Romish faith. Philip prevailed on Guise 
openly to take up arms against Henry III. (who was re- 
viled by the Leaguers as a traitor to the true Church, and 
a secret friend to the Huguenots) ; and thus prevent the 
French king from interfering in favor of Queen Elizabeth. 
*'With this object, the commander, Juan Iniguez Moreo, 
was dispatched by him in the early part of April to the 
Duke of Guise at Soissons. He met with complete success. 
He offered the Duke of Guise, as soon as he took the field 
against Henry III., three hundred thousand crowns, six 
thousand infantry, and twelve hundred pikemen, on behalf 
of the king, his master, who would, in addition, withdraw 
his embassador from the court of France, and accredit an 



MODERN SPAIN, 161 

envoy to the Catholic party. A treaty was concluded on 
these conditions, and the Duke of Guise entered Paris, 
where he was expected by the Leaguers, and whence he 
expelled Henry III. on the 12th of May, by the insurrec- 
tion of the barricades. A fortnight after this insurrection, 
which reduced Henry III. to impotence, and, to use the 
language of the Prince of Parma, did not even 'permit him 
to assist the Queen of England with his tears, as he needed 
them all to weep over his own misfortunes,' the Spanish 
fleet left the Tagus and sailed toward the British isles." 

Meanwhile in England, from the sovereign on the throne 
to the peasant in the cottage, all hearts and hands made 
ready to meet the imminent deadly peril. A camp was 
formed at Tilbury; and there Elizabeth rode through the 
ranks, encouraging her captains and her soldiers by her 
presence and her words. 

The ships of the royal navy at this time amounted to 
no more than thirty-six; but the most serviceable merchant 
vessels were collected from all the ports of the country; 
and the citizens of London, Bristol, and the other great 
seats of commerce, showed as liberal a zeal in equipping 
and manning vessels as the nobility and gentry displayed 
in mustering forces by land. The seafaring population of 
the coast, of every rank and station, was animated by the 
same ready spirit ; and the whole number of seamen who 
came forward to man the English fleet was 17,472. The 
number of the ships that were collected was 191; and the 
total amount of their tonnage 31,985. There was one ship 
in the fleet (the '^Triumph") of 1,100 tons, one of 1,000, 
one of 900, two of 800 each, three of 600, fiYe of 600, five 
of 400, six of 300, six of 250^ twenty of 200, and the residue 



162 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

of inferior burden. Application was made to the Dutch 
for assistance; and, as Stowe expresses it, "The Holland- 
ers came roundly in, with threescore sail, brave ships of 
war, fierce and full of spleen, not so much for England's 
aid, as in just occasion for their own defense; these men 
foreseeing the greatness of the danger that might ensue, if 
the Spaniards should chance to win the day and get the 
mastery over them; in due regard whereof their manly 
courage was inferior to none." 

The equipment of the Spanish forces consisted of 130 
ships (besides caravels), 3,165 cannon, 8,050 sailors, 2,088 
galley-slaves, 18,973 soldiers, 1,882 noblemen, gentlemen, 
and attendants, 150 monks, with Martin Alarco, vicar of 
the Inquisition — the whole under the command of the Duk« 
of Medina-Sidonia. 

While this huge armada was making ready in the south- 
ern ports of the Spanish dominions, the Prince of Parma, 
with almost incredible toil and skill, collected a squadron 
of warships at Dunkirk, and his flotilla of other ships and 
of fiat-bottomed boats for the transport to England of the 
picked troops, which were designed to be the main instru- 
ments in subduing England. Thousands of workmen were 
employed, night and day, in the construction of these ves- 
sels, in the ports of Flanders and Brabant. One hundred 
of the kind called hendes, built at Antwerp, Bruges, and 
Ghent, and laden with provision and ammunition, together 
with sixty flat-bottomed boats, each capable of carrying 
thirty horses, were brought, by means of canals and fosses, 
dug expressly for the purpose, to Nieuport and Dunkirk. 
One hundred smaller vessels were equipped at the former 
nlace, and thirty-two at Dunkirk, provided with twenty 



MODERN SPAIN. 163 

thousand empty barrels, and with materials for making^ 
pontoons, for stopping up the harbors, and raising forts 
and intrenchments. The army which these vessels were 
designed to convey to England amounted to thirty thou- 
sand strong, besides a body of four thousand cavalry, sta- 
tioned at Courtroi, composed chiefly of the ablest veterans 
of Europe; invigorated by rest (the siege of Sluys having 
been the only enterprise in which they were employed 
during the last campaign), and excited by the hopes of 
plunder and the expectation of certain conquest. 

Philip had been advised by the deserter. Sir William 
Stanley, not to attack England in the first instance, but 
first to effect a landing and secure a strong position in 
Ireland; his admiral, Santa Cruz, had recommended him 
to make sure, in the first instance, of some large harbor 
on the coast of Holland or Zealand, where the Armada, 
having entered the Channel, might find shelter in case of 
storm, and whence it could sail without difficulty for Eng- 
land; but Philip rejected both these counsels, and directed 
that England itself should be made the immediate object 
of attack; and on the 20th of May the Armada left the 
Tagus, in the pomp and pride of supposed invincibility, 
and amid the shouts of thousands, who believed that 
England was already conquered. But steering to the 
northward, and before it was clear of the coast of Spain, 
the Armada was assailed by a violent storm, and driven 
back with considerable damage to the ports of Biscay and 
Gallicia. It had, however, sustained its heaviest loss be- 
fore it left the Tagus, in the death of the veteran admiral 
Santa Cruz, who had been destined to guide it against 
England. 



164 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

This experienced sailor, notwithstanding his diligence 
and success, had been unable to keep pace with the impa- 
tient ardor of his master. Philip II. had reproached him 
with his dilatoriness, and had said with ungrateful harsh- 
ness, "You make an ill return for all my kindness to 
you." These words cut the veteran's heart, and proved 
fatal to Santa Cruz. Overwhelmed with fatigue and 
grief, he sickened and died. Philip II. had replaced him 
by Alonzo Perez de Gusman, duke of Medina Sidonia, 
one of the most powerful of the Spanish grandees, but 
wholly miqualified to command such an expeditioa, He 
had, however, as his lieutenants, two seamen of proved 
skill and bravery, Juan de Martinez Becalde of Biscay, 
and Miguel Orquendo of Guipuzcoa. 

On the 12th of July the Armada, having completely 
refitted, sailed again for the Channel, and reached it 
without obstruction or observation by the English. 

The design of the Spaniards was, that the Armada 
should give them, at least for a time, the command of 
the sea, and that it should join the squadron which Parma 
had collected, off Calais. Then, escorted by an over- 
powering naval force, Parma and his army were to em- 
bark in their flotilla, and cross the sea to England, where 
they were to be landed, together with the troops which 
the Armada brought from the ports of Spain. The scheme 
was not dissimilar to one formed against England a little 
more than two centuries afterward. 

The orders of King PhiKp to the Duke of Medina 
Sidonia were, that he should, on entering the Channel, 
keep near the French coast, and, if attacked by the En- 
glish ships, avoid an action, and steer on to Calais Roads, 



MODERN SPAIN. 165 

where the Prince of Parma's squadron was to join him. 
The hope of surprising and destroying the English fleet 
in Plymouth led the Spanish admiral to deviate from 
these orders, and to stand across to the English shore; 
but, on finding that Lord Howard was coming out to 
meet him, he resumed the original plan, and determined 
to bend his way steadily toward Calais and Dunkirk, 
and to keep merely on the defensive against such squad- 
rons of the English as might come up with him. 

It was on Saturday, the 20th of July, that Lord Effing- 
ham came in sight of his formidable adversaries. The 
Armada was drawn up in form of a crescent, which from 
horn to horn measured some seven miles. There was a 
southwest wind; and before it the vast vessels sailed 
slowly on. The English let them pass by; and then, 
following in the rear, commenced an attack on them. 
A running fight now took place, in which some of the 
best ships of the Spaniards were captured; many more 
received heavy damage; while the English vessels, which 
took care not to close with their huge antagonists, but 
availed themselves- of their superior celerity in tacking 
and maneuvering, suffered little comparative loss. 

The Spanish admiral showed great judgment and firm- 
ness in following the line of conduct that had been traced 
out for him ; and on the 27th of July he brought his fleet 
imbroken, though sorely distressed, to anchor in Calais 
Roads. The Armada lay off Calais, with its largest ships 
ranged outside, "like strong castles fearing no assault; 
the lesser placed in the middle ward.*' The English ad- 
miral could not attack them in their position without great 
disadvantage, but on the night of the 29th he sent edght 



166 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

fire-ships among them, with almost equal effect to that 
of the fire-ships which the Greeks so often employed 
against the Turkish fieets in their war of independence. 
The Spaniards cut their cables and put to sea in confu- 
sion. One of the largest galeasses ran foul of another 
vessel and was stranded. The rest of the fleet was scat- 
tered about on the Flemish coast, and when the morning 
broke, it was with difficulty and delay that they obeyed 
their admiral's signal to range themselves round him near 
Gravelines. Now was the golden opportunity for the En- 
glish to assail them, and prevent them from ever letting 
loose Parma's flotilla against England; and nobly was 
that opportunity used. Drake and Fenner were the first 
English captains who attacked the unwieldy leviathans: 
then came Fenton, Southwell, Burton, Cross, Raynor, 
and then the lord-admiral, with Lord Thomas Howard 
and Lord Sheffield. The Spaniards only thought of form- 
ing and keeping close together, and were driven by the 
English past Dunkirk, and far away from the Prince of 
Parma, who, in watching their defeat from the coast, 
must, as Drake expressed it, have ^iiafed like a bear 
robbed of her whelps. This was indeed the last and the 
decisive battle between the two fleets. 

Many of the largest Spanish ships were sunk or cap- 
tured in the action of this day. And at length the Span- 
ish admiral, despairing of success, fled northward with 
a southerly wind, in the hope of rounding Scotland, and 
so returning to Spain without a further encounter with 
the English fleet. Lord Effingham left a squadron to 
continue the blockade of the Prince of Parma's arma- 
ment; but that wise general soon withdrew his troops to 



MODERN SPAIN, 167 

more promising fields of action. Meanwhile the lord- 
admiral himself and Drake chased the vincible Armada, 
as it was now termed, for some distance northward; and 
then, when it seemed to bend away from the Scotch coast 
toward Norway, it was thought best, in the Words of 
Drake, *'to leave them to those boisterous and uncouth 
northern seas." 

The sufferings and losses which the unhappy Span- 
iards sustained in their flight round Scotland and Ireland 
are well known. Of their whole Armada only fifty-three 
shattered vessels brought back their beaten and wasted 
crews to the Spanish coast which they had quitted in 
such pageantry and pride. 

At the death of Philip, which occurred on September 
13, 1598, he left to his son and successor, Philip III., an 
empire nominally undiminished, but unwieldy and inter- 
nally exhausted. Resources had been squandered. The 
attention of the masses had been turned from industry 
to war. The soldiery once regarded as invincible had 
lost their prestige in the Netherland swamps. Enormous 
taxes, from which nobles and clergy were exempt, were 
multiplied on the people. That being insufficient, Philip 
III. proved his orthodoxy by completing the work. In 
1609 the Moors, or Moriscoes as they were called, were 
ordered to quit the Peninsula within three days, and the 
penalty of death was decreed against all who failed to 
obey, and against any Christians who should shelter the 
recalcitrants. The edict was obeyed, but it was the ruin 
of Spain. The Moriscoes were the backbone of the in- 
dustrial population, not only in trade and manufactures, 

but also in agriculture. The haughty and indolent Span- 

8 



168 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

iards had willingly left what they considered degrading 
employments to their inferiors. The Moors had intro- 
duced into Spain the cultivation of sugar, cotton, rice 
and silk. They had established a system of irrigation 
which had given fertility to the soil. The province of 
Valencia in their hands had become a model of agri- 
culture to the rest of Europe. In manufactures and com- 
merce they had shown equal superiority to the Christian 
inhabitants, and many of the products of Spain were 
eagerly sought for by other countries. All these advan- 
tages were sacrificed to an insane desire for religious 
unity. 

The resources of Spain, already exhausted, never re- 
covered from this terrible blow. Philip III. died in March, 
1621. His reign had not been glorious or advantageous 
to Spain, but it contrasts favorably with those of his suc- 
cessors. Spanish literature and art, which had received a 
great impulse from the intercourse with foreign countries 
under previous rulers, reached their zenith during his life- 
time. Three writers have obtained European fame — Cer- 
vantes, who produced the immortal "Don Quixote*' be- 
tween 1605 and 1613, and two of the most fertile of 
romantic dramatists. Lope de Vega and Calderon. In 
the domain of art Spain produced two of the greatest 
masters of the seventeenth century, Velasquez and 
Murillo. 

Philip II. was succeeded by Philip III. After him 
came Philip IV. and then Charles II. Of these mon- 
archs Mignet said: "Philip II. was merely a king. Philip 
III. and Philip IV. were not kings, and Charles II. was 
not even a man.*' The death of the latter precipitated 



MODERN SPAm 160 

the War of the Sucx;ession, the military operatiocis of 
which were rendered famous by the military ezploitB 
of Eugene and Marlborough. But this is not the place 
to recite them. The chief scenes of hostilities wece the 
Netherlands, Germany and Italy, and their nanatioD 
belongs more properly to the histories of these lands. 
Suffice it to say that by the Treaty of Utrecht war was 
concluded in 1711, and Philip V., a Bourbon, second 
grandson of Louis XIY., was, in accordanoe with the 
will of Charles II., acknowledged King of £^»ain. By 
the same treaty England gained Gibraltar, while the 
Spanish Netherlands, Milan, Naples and Sardinia w^re 
ceded to Austria. 

With the accession of a Botu*boQ, Spain entered into • 
new period of history, during which it once more played 
a part in the politics of Europe, as also in its wars| 
those, for instance, of the Polish and Austrian snccesdoos 
— ^the country meanwhile being additionally embroiled with 
England. 

Philip v. was succeeded by Ferdinand YL, and tise 
latter by Charles III., whose death, together with the 
accession of Charles IV«, were eontempc^ary wi& the 
French Revolution. The execution of Louis XVI. made 
a profound impression on a country where iqjralty was a 
superstition. Charles lY. was roused to demand ven* 
geance for the insult to his family. Godqy$ the Pdme 
Minister, could but follow the national is^mlsei and 
Spain became a member of the first ooalition againsi 
France. But the two campaigns which ensued ptovoked 
the contempt of Europe. Th^ form a catalogue of da* 
feats. Under the dremnstaaoeg it ii oo wonder thai 



170 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

Spain followed the example of Prussia and concluded a 
treaty of peace. 

The next event of importance was Napoleon's famous 
coup de main — the seizure of the Spanish royal family 
at Bayonne — the jugglery which he performed with the 
crown, its transference by him from Ferdinand VII. 
(son of Charles IV.) to Joseph Bonaparte, and the revolt 
of the South American colonies which that act produced. 

Then came the restoration of Spanish independence 
through England's aid; Wellington's famous campaign; 
the battles of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos; the entry 
into Madrid; the retreat of Joseph to Valencia; Napo- 
leon's crushing defeat at Leipzig, and Ferdinand's return 
from captivity at Valengay. 

The circimistances through which these last-mentioned 
events were induced or precipitated, and which are collect- 
ively known as the Peninsular War, originated at the mo- 
ment when Napoleon was practically master of Europe. Its 
whole face was changed. Prussia was occupied by French 
troops. Holland was changed into a monarchy by a simple 
decree of the French emperor, and its crown bestowed on 
his brother Louis. Another brother, Jerome, became King 
of Westphalia, a new realm built up out of the electorates 
of Hesse-Cassel and Hanover. A third brother, Joseph, was 
made King of Naples; while the rest of Italy, and even 
Rome itself, was annexed to the French empire. It was 
the hope of effectually crushing the world-power of Britain 
which drove him to his worst aggression, the aggression 
upon Spain. He acted with his usual subtlety. In Octo- 
ber, 1807, France and Spain agreed to divide Portugal be- 
tween them; and on the advance of their forces the reign- 



MODERN SPAIN: 171 

jng House of Bragaasa fled helpkealy from Lubon to a 
refuge in Bradl. But the seizure of Portugal was onljr 
a prelude to the seizure of Spain. Oharlea IT., whom m 
riot in his coital drove at this moment to abdication, and 
his son, Ferdinand YIL, were drawn to Bayonne in May, 
1808, and ioi^ced to resign their claims to the Spanish 
orown; while a French army entered Madrid aod pro* 
claimed Joseph Bonaparte king of Spain. But this high*^ 
handed act of aggression was hardly completed when Bpsd^ 
rose as one man against the stranger; and desperate as 
the effort of its people seemed, the news of the rising waa 
welcomed throughout England with a burst of enthusiasts 
joy. ''Hitherto," cried Sheridan, a leader of the Whig 
opposition, ''Bona|^rte has contended with princes with* 
out dignity, numbers without ardor, or peoples without 
patriotism. He has yet to learn what it is to combat a 
people who are animated by one spirit against him.'* Tlgij 
and Whig alike held that ''never had so happy an oppor^ 
tunity existed in Britain to strike a bold stroke for the 
rescue of the world"; and Canning at once resolved to 
change the system of desultory descents on colonies and 
sugar islands for a vigorous warfare in the Peninsula. 

The furious and bloody struggle which ensued found 
its climax at Vittoria, but it would be difficult to find in 
the whole history of war a more thrilling chapter than 
that which tells of the six great campaigns of which the 
war itself was composed. 

The Peninsular War was perhaps the least selfish con» 
fiict ever waged. It was not a war of aggrandizement or 
of conquest. It was fought to deliver Europe from the 
despotism <^ Napoleon. At its close the fleets of Great 



17« HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

Britain rode triumphant, and in the PeninBtila between 
1808-14 her land forces fought and won nineteen pitched 
battles, made or sustained ten fierce and bloody sieges, 
took four great fortresses, twice expelled the French from 
Portugal and once from 8pain. Great Britain expended 
in these campaigns more than one himdred million pounds 
sterling on her own troops, besides subsidizing the forces 
of Spain and Portugal. This ''nation of shopkeepers" 
proved that when kindled to action it could wage war on 
a scale and in a fashion that might have moved the won- 
der of Alexander or of Csesar, and from motives too lofty 
for either Ceesar or Alexander so much as to comprehend. 
It is worth while to tell afresh the story of some of the 
more picturesque incidents in that great strife. 

On April 6, 1813, Badajos was stormed by Wellington; 
and the story forms one of the most tragical and splendid 
incidents in the military history of the world. Of "the 
night of horrors at Badajos," Napier says, "posterity can 
scarcely be expected to credit the tale." N"o tale, however, 
is better authenticated, or, as an example of what disci- 
plined human valor is capable of achieving, better deserves 
to be told. Wellington was preparing for his great for- 
ward movement into Spain, the campaign which led to 
Salamanca, the battle in which "forty thousand French- 
men were beaten in forty minutes." As a preliminary he 
had to capture, under the vigilant eyes of Soult and Mar- 
mont, the two great border fortresses, Ciudad Rodrigo and 
Badajos. He had, to use Napier's phrase, "jumped with 
both feet" on the first-named fortress, and captured it in 
twelve days with a loss of twelve hundred men and ninety 
officers. 



MODERN SPAIN, 173 

But Badajos was a still harder task. The city stands 
on a rocky ridge which forms the last spur of the Toledo 
range, and is of extraordinary strength. The river Rivil- 
las falls almost at right angles into the Guadiana, and in 
the angle formed by their junction stands Badajos, oval 
in shape, girdled with elaborate defenses, with the Guadi- 
ana, five hundred yards wide, as its defense to the north, 
the Rivillas serving as a wet ditch to the west, and no less 
than five great fortified outposts — Saint Koque, Christoval, 
Picurina, Pardaleras, and a fortified bridge-head across 
the Guadiana — as the outer zone of its defenses. Twice 
the English had already assailed Badajos, but assailed it 
in vain. It was now held by a garrison five thousand 
strong, under a soldier. General Phillipson, with a real 
genius for defense, and the utmost art had been employed 
in adding to its defenses. On the other hand, Wellington 
had no means of transport and no battery train, and had 
to make all his preparations under the keen-eyed vigilance 
of the French. Perhaps the strangest collection of artillery 
ever employed in a great siege was that which "Wellington 
collected from every available quarter and used at Bada- 
jos. Of the fifty-two pieces, some dated from the days 
of Philip II. and the Spanish Armada, some were cast in 
the reign of Philip III., others in that of John IV. of 
Portugal, who reigned in 1640; there were 24-pounders 
of George II. 's day, and Russian naval guns; the bulk of 
the extraordinary medley being obsolete brass engines 
which required from seven to ten minutes to cool between 
each discharge. 

Wellington, however, was strong in his own warlike 
genius and in the quality of the troops he commanded. 



174 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

He employed eighteen thousand men in the siege, and it 
may well be doubted whether — if we put the question of 
equipment aside — a more perfect fighting instrument than 
the force under his orders ever existed. The men were 
veterans, but the officers on the whole were young, so there 
was steadiness in the ranks and fire in the leading. Hill 
and Graham covered the siege, Picton and Barnard, Kempt 
and Colville led the assaults. The trenches were held by 
the third, fourth, and fifth divisions, and by the famous 
Hght division. Of the latter it has been said that the 
Macedonian phalanx of Alexander the Great, the Tenth 
Legion of Cteesar, the famous Spanish infantry of Alva, or 
the iron soldiers who followed Cortes to Mexico, did not 
exceed it in warlike quality. Wellington's troops, too, had 
a personal grudge against Badajos, and had two defeats to 
avenge. Perhaps no siege in history, as a matter of fact, 
ever witnessed either more furious valor in the assault, or 
more of cool and skilled courage in the defense. The siege 
lasted exactly twenty days, and cost the besiegers five thou- 
sand men, or an average loss of two hundred and fifty per 
day. It was waged throughout in stormy weather, with 
the rivers steadily rising, and the tempests perpetually 
blowing; yet the thunder of the attack never paused for 
an instant. 

Wellington's engineers attacked the city at the eastern 
end of the oval, where the Rivillas served it as a gigantic 
wet ditch; and the Picurina, a fortified hill, ringed by a 
ditch fourteen feet deep, a rampart sixteen feet high, and 
a zone of mines, acted as an outwork, Wellington, curL 
ously enough, believed in night attacks, a sure proof of his 
faith in the quality of the men he commanded; and on the 



MODERN SPAIN. 175 

eighth night of the siege, at nine o'clock, fire hundred men 
of the third division were suddenly flung on the Picurina. 
The fort broke into a ring of flame, by the light of which 
the dark figures of the stormers were seen leaping with 
fierce hardihood into the ditch and struggling madly up 
the ramparts, or tearing furiously at the palisades. But 
the defenses were strong, and the assailants fell literally 
in scores. Napier tells how **the axmen of the light divis- 
ion, compassing the fort like prowling wolves," discovered 
the gete at the rear, and so broke into the fort. The en- 
gineer officer who led the attack declares that ''the place 
would never have been taken had it not been for the cool- 
ness of these men" in absolutely walking round the fort to 
its rear, discovering the gate, and hewing it down under 
a tempest of bullets. The assault lasted an hour, and in 
that period, out of the five hundred men who attacked, no 
less than three hundred, with nineteen officers, were killed 
or wounded! Three men out of every five in the attacking 
force, that is, were disabled, and yet they won! 

There followed twelve days of furious industry, of 
trenches pushed tirelessly forward through mud and wet, 
and of cannonading that only ceased when the gims grew 
too hot to be used. Captain MacCarthy, of the Fiftieth 
Begiment, has left a curious little monograph on the siege, 
full of incidents, haK tragic and half amusing, but which 
show the temper of Wellington's troops. Thus he tells 
how an engineer officer, when marking out the ground for 
a breaching-battery very near the wall, which was always 
lined with French soldiers in eager search of human tar- 
gets, "used to challenge them to prove the perfection of 
their shooting by lifting up the skirts of his coat in defi* 



176 BISTORY OF SPAIN, 

ance several times in the course of his surveyi driving in 
his stakes and measuring his distances with great delibera> 
tion, and concluding by an extra shake of his coat-tails 
and an ironical bow before he stepped imder shelter!" 

On the night of April 6, Wellington determined to as- 
sault. No less than seven attacks were to be delivered. 
Two of them— K>n the bridge-head across the Guadiana and 
on the Pardaleras — ^were mere feints. But on the extreme 
right Picton with the third division was to cross the Rivilkui 
and escalade the castle, whose walls rose, time-stained and 
grim, from eighteen to twenty-four feet high. Leith with 
the fifth division was to attack the opposite or western ex- 
tremity of the town, the bastion of St. Yincente, where the 
glacis was mined, the ditch deep, and the scarp thirfy feet 
high. Against the actual breaches Colville and Andrew 
Barnard were to lead the light division and the fourth 
division, the former attacking the bastion of Santa Maria 
and the latter the Trinidad. The hour was fixed for ten 
o'clock, and the story of that night attack, as told in Na- 
pier's immortal prose, is one of the great battle-pictures of 
literature; and any one who tries to tell the tale will find 
himself slipping insensibly into Napier's cadences. 

The night was black; a strange silence lay on rampart 
and trench, broken from time to time by the deep voiceo 
of the sentinels that proclaimed all was well in Badajos. 
**Sentinelle garde k vous,'* the cry of the sentinels, was 
translated by the British private, as "All's well in Bada- 
hool" A lighted carcass thrown from the castle discov- 
ered Picton's men standing in ordered array, and com- 
pelled them to attack at once. MacCarthy, who acted as 
guide across the tangle of wet trenches and the narrow 



MODERN SPAIN. 177 

bridge that spanned the Rivillas, has left an amusing ac- 
count of the scene. At one time Picton declared MacCarthy 
was leading them wrong, and, drawing his sword, swore he 
would cut him down. The column reached the trench, how- 
ever, at the foot of the castle walls, and was instantly over- 
whelmed with the fire of the besieged. MacCarthy says 
we can only picture the scene by "supposing that all the 
stars, planets, and meteors of the firmament, with innum- 
erable moons emitting smaller ones in their course, were 
descending on the heads of the besiegers.'* MacCarthy 
himself, a typical and gallant Irishman, addressed his gen- 
eral with the exultant remark, "'Tis a glorious night, sir 
— a glorious night I" and, rushing forward to the head of 
the stormers, shouted, "Up with the ladders!" The five 
ladders were raised, the troops swarmed up, an officer lead- 
ing, but the first files were at once crushed by cannon fire, 
and the ladders slipped into the angle of the abutments. 
**Dreadful their fall," records MacCarthy of the slaugh- 
tered stormers, "and appalling their appearance at day- 
light." One ladder remained, and, a private soldier lead- 
ing, the eager red-coated crowd swarmed up it. The brave 
fellow leading was shot as soon as his head appeared above 
the parapet ; but the next man to him — again a private — 
leaped over the parapet, and was followed quickly by oth- 
ers, and this thin stream of desperate men climbed singly, 
and in the teeth of the flashing musketry, up that solitary 
ladder, and carried the castle. 

In the meanwhile the fourth and light divisions had 
flung themselves with cool and silent speed on the breaches. 
The storming party of each division leaped into the ditch. 
It was mined, the fuse was kindled, and the ditch, crowded 



178 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

with eager soldiery, became in a moment a sort of flaming 
crater, and the storming parties, five hundred strong, were 
in one fierce explosion dashed to pieces. In the light of 
that dreadful flame the whole scene became visible — the 
black ramparts, crowded with dark figures and glittering 
arms, on the one side; on the other, the red columns of the 
British, broad and deep, moving steadily forward like a 
stream of human lava. The light division stood at the 
brink of the smoking ditch for an instant, amazed at the 
sight. "Then,** says Napier, "with a shout that matched 
even the sound of the explosion," they leaped into it and 
swarmed up to tiie breach. The fourth division came run- 
ning up aiid descended with equal fury, but the ditch op- 
posite the Trinidad was filled with water; the head of the 
division leaped into it, and, as Naper puts it, "about one 
hundred of the fusiliers, the men of Albuera, perished 
there." The breaches were impassable. Across the top 
of the great slope of broken wall glittered a fringe of 
Bword - blades, sharp-pointed, keen -edged on both sides, 
fixed in ponderous beams chained together and set deep 
in the ruins. For ten feet in front the ascent was covered 
with loose planks, studded with sharp iron points. Behind 
the glittering edge of sword-blades stood the solid ranks 
of the French, each man supplied with three muskets, and 
their fire scourged the British ranks like a tempest. 

Hundreds had fallen, hundreds were still falling; but 
the British clung doggedly to the lower slopes, and every 
few minutes an officer would leap forward with a shout, 
a swarm of men would instantly follow him, and, like 
leaves blown by a whirlwind, they swept up the ascent. 
But under the incessant fire of the French the assailants 



MODERN SPAIK 170 

melted away. One private reached the 8Word-bladee9 and 
actually thrust his head beneath them till his brains were 
beaten out, so desperate was his reedve to get into Bada* 
jos. The breach, as Napier describes it, "yawning and 
glittering with steel, resembled the mouth of a huge 
dragon belching forth smoke and flame/' But tot two 
hours, and until two thousand men had fallen, the stub* 
bom British persisted in their attacks. Ourrie, of the 5^d, 
a cool and most daring soldier, found a narrow ramp be- 
yond the Santa Maria breach only half -ruined; he forced 
his way back 11ux>ugh the tumult and carnage to where 
"Welling^n stood watching the scene, obtained an unbroken 
battalion from the reserve, and led it toward the broken 
ramp. But his men were caught in the wlurling madness 
of the ditch and swallowed up in the tumult. Nicholas, of 
the engineers, and Bhaw of the 43d, with some fifty* sot* 
diers, actually climbed into the Santa Maria bastion, and 
from thence tried to force their way into the breach. Every 
man was shot down except Shaw, who stood alone on the 
bastion. ''With inexpressible coolness he looked at his 
watch, said it was too late to carry the breaches,'* and 
then leaped downi The British could not penetrate the 
breach; but they would not retreat. They could only die 
where they stood. The buglers of the reserve were sent 
to the crest of the glacis to sound the retreat; the troops 
in the ditch would not believe the signal to be genuine, 
and struck their own buglers who attempted to repeat it. 
•'Gathering in dark groups, and leaning on their muskets," 
says Napier, "they looked up in sullen desperation at Trini- 
dad, while the enemy, stepping out on the ramparts, and 
aiming their shots by the light c^ fire-bails, which they 



180 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

threw over, asked as their victims fell, *Why they did not 
come into Badajos.' " 

All this while, curiously enough, Picton was actually 
in Badajos, and held the castle securely, but made no 
attempt to clear the breach. On the extreme west of the 
town, however, at the bastion of San Yincente, the fifth 
division made an attack as desperate as that which was 
failing at the breaches. When the stormers actually 
reached the bastion, the Portuguese battalions, who 
formed part of the attack, dismayed by the tremendous 
fire which broke out on them, flimg down their ladders 
and fled. The British, however, snatched the ladders up, 
forced the barrier, jumped into the ditch, and tried to 
climb the walls. These were thirty feet high, and the 
ladders were too short. A mine was sprung in the ditch 
under the soldiers' feet; beams of wood, stones, broken 
wagons, and live shells were poured upon their heads 
from above. Showers of grape from the flank swept the 
ditch. 

The stubborn soldiers, however, discovered a low spot 
in the rampart, placed three ladders against it, and climbed 
with reckless valor. The first man was pushed up by his 
comrades; he, in turn, dragged others up, and the un- 
conquerable British at length broke through and swept 
the bastion. The tumult still stormed and raged at the 
eastern bi^eaches, where the men of the light and fourth 
division were dying sullenly, and the men of the fifth 
division marched at speed across the town to take the 
great eastern breach in the rear. The streets were empty, 
but the silent houses were bright with lamps. The men 
of the fifth pressed on; they captured mules carrying am- 



JVODBRN SPAIN. 181 

ma iitio n to ^ bcesclies, and the FroBoh, ttarlled by tho 
tramp of the fast-approaching oolmnu, and finding them- 
selves taken in the rear, fled. The light and fourth divis- 
ions broke through the gap hitherto barred by flame azzd 
steel, and BadajoB was w(ml 

In that dreadful night assault the English lost tiuree 
thousand five hundred man. *'Let it be ooosidered,*' m^ 
Napier, ^'that Hiis frightful carnage took place in tte 
space of less ^lan a hundred yards square—that the slaia 
died not all suddenly^ nor by one manner of death— that 
some perisl^ by steel, some by shot, some by watery 
that some were crushed and mangled by heavy weighty 
some trampled upon, some dashed to atoms by the fiery 
asplcsions—that for hours this destruction was endured 
without shrinkings and the town was won at last Let 
these things be considered, and it must be admitted a 
British army bears with it an awful power. And ^Iss 
would it be to say the French were feeUe men. The 
garrison stood and fought manfully and with good disci- 
pline, behaving worthily. Shame there was none on any 
side. Yet who shall do justice to the braveiy of the Brit- 
ish soldiers or the noble emulation of the officerst . . . 
No age, no [nation, ever sent forth braver troops to battle 
than those who stormed Badajos." 

In addition to Badajos, the siege of Oiudad Bodrigo 
and of San Sebastian deserve mention. The annab of 
strife nowhere record assaults more daring than Miobs 
which raged in turn aroimd these three great fortresses. 
Of them all that of Badajos was the most picturesque and 
bloody; that of San Sebastian the most sullen and exa»> 
peratmgs thai of (Sndad Bodrigo tiM swiftest and aiosl 



18$ HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

brJJliant. A great siege tests the fighting quality of auy 
army as nothing else can test it. In the night watches in 
the trenches, in the dogged toil of the batteries, and the 
crowded perils of the breach, all the frippery and much of 
the real discipline of an army dissolves. The soldiers fall 
back upon what may be called the primitive fighting quali- 
ties — ^the hardihood of the individual soldier, the daring 
with which the officers will lead, the dogged loyalty with 
which the men will follow. As an illustration of the war- 
like qualities in a race by which empire has been achieved, 
nothing better can be desired than the story of how the 
breaches were won at Ciudad Rodrigo. 

At the end of 1811 the English and the French were 
watching each other jealously across the Spanish border. 
The armies of Marmont and of Sotdt, sixty-seven thousand 
strong, lay within touch of each other, barring Wellingp- 
ton's entrance into Spain. Wellington, with thirty-five 
thousand men, of whom not more than ten thousand men 
were British, lay within sight of the Spanish frontier. It 
was the winter time. Wellington's army was wasted by 
sickness, his horses were dying of mere starvation, his men 
had received no pay for three months, and his muleteers 
none for eight months. He had no siege train, his regi- 
ments were ragged and hungry, and the French generals 
confidently reckoned the British army as, for the moment 
at least, une quantite negligeable. 

And yet at that precise moment, Wellington, snbtle and 
daring, was meditating a leap upon the great frontier for- 
tress of Ciudad Rodrigo, in the Spanish province of Sala- 
manca. Its capture would give him a safe base of opera* 
tions against Spain; it was the great frontier place d'armes 



for the French; HiB whole siege-equipage snd stores of tte 
army of Portugal were oontaioed In it The probkm d 
how, in the depth of wint^, withonft materials for a ifegs^ 
to snatch a place so stroog foam under the very ey^B «l 
two armies, each stranger than his own, was a problem 
which might have taxed the warlike genius of a Onar« 
But Wellington accomplished it with a combtnatlfln ef 
subtlety and audacity simply marvelous. 

He kept the secret of his design so perfectly fliai Ms 
own engineers never suspected it, and hb adJntant-geA- 
eral, Moftay, went home ckei leave without dreiyQad^ aay^ 
thing was going to happen. Wellington cidleoted arllDssy 
ostensiUy for the purpose of arming Ahndda, but tJbe gnas 
were transshipped at sea and brought secretly to tiie moalh 
of the Douro. No less than ei^^t hundred muIe-carlB wisis 
constructed without anybody guessing their purpose. Well* 
ingtcoi, while these preparatk>ns were on foot, was keenly 
watching Harmont and Soult, till he saw that they were 
lulled into a state of mere yawning security, and ilisa, in 
Napier's expre^ve phrase, he ^^instantly jumped witiii both 
feet upon Ciudad Rodrigo." 

This famous fortress, in shape, roughly resembles a 
triangle with the angles truncated. The base, kx&ing to 
the south, is covered by the Agueda, a river given to sud- 
den inundations; the fortifications were strong and fonnl* 
ikbly armed; as outworks it had to the east the greal 
fortified Ckmvent of San Franckoo, to the west a dmHar 
Imilding called Santa Cruz; while almost paralM witii the 
iiorthem face rose two rocky ridges called Hie Qrsat and 
Small Teaon, the nearest within dz hundred jraids of the 
dty ramparts, and crowned by a formidable redoubt caltod 



184 BmTORY OF SPAIN. 

Frandsoo. The siege began on Jannaiy 8. The soil was 
rooky and covered with snow, the nights were black, the 
weather Utter. The men lacked intrenching tools. They 
bad to encamp on the side of the Agueda furthest from 
the dty, and ford that river every time the trenches were 
relieved. The Ist, Sd, and light divisions formed the at- 
tacking force; each division held the trenches in turn for 
twenty-four hours. Let the reader imagine what degree 
of hardihood it took to wade in the gray and bitter winter 
dawn through a balf-frozen river, and, without fire or 
warm food, and imder a ceaseless rain of shells from the 
enemy's guns, to toil in the frozen trenches, or to keep 
watch, while the icicles hung from eyebrow and beard, 
over the edge of the battery for twenty-four hours in 
•accession. 

Nothing in this great fidege is more wonderful than the 
fierce speed with which Wellington urged his operations. 
Massena, who had besieged and captured the city the year 
before in the height of summer, spent a month in bom- 
barding it before he ventured to assault. Wellington broke 
ground on January 8, under a tempest of mingled hail and 
rain; he stormed it on the night of the 19th. 

He began operations by leaping on the strong work 
that crowned the Great Teson the very night the siegd 
began. Two companies from each regiment of the light 
division were detailed by the officer of the day. Colonel 
Colbome, for the assault. Oolbome (afterw€ird Lord Sea- 
ton), a God and gallant soldier, called his officers together 
in a group and explained with great minuteness how they 
were to attack. He then lanched his men against the re- 
doubt with a vehemence so awiit that, to those who 



MODERN SPAIN, 185 

watched the scene under the light of a wintry moon, the 
column of redcoats, like the thrust of a crimson sword- 
blade, spanned the ditch, shot up the glacis, and broke 
through the parapet with a single movement. The acci- 
dental explosion of a French shell burst the gate open, 
and the remainder of the attacking party instantly swept 
through it. There was fierce musketry fire and a tumult 
of shouting for a moment or two, but in twenty minutes 
from Colbome's lanching his attack every Frenchman in 
tfie redoubt was killed, wounded, or a prisoner. 

The fashion in which the gate was blown open was very 
cnriouB. A French sergeant was in the act of throwing 
a live shell upon the storming party in the ditch, when 
be was struck by an English bullet. The lighted shell 
fell from his hands within the parapet, was kicked away 
l^ the nearest French in mere self-preservation; it rolled 
toward the gate, exploded, burst it <^)en, and instantly the 
British broke in. 

For ten days a desperate artillery duel raged between 
the besiegers and Ithe besieged. The parallels were reso- 
lutely pushed on in spite of rocky soil, broken tools, bitter 
weather, and the incessant pelting of the French guns. 
The temper of the British troops is illustrated by an inci- 
dent which George Napier — the yoomgest of the three 
Napiers — relates. The three brothers were gallant and 
remarkable soldiers. Charles IsTapier in India and else- 
where made history; William, in his wonderful tale of 
the Peninsular "War, wrote history; and George, if he had 
not the literary genius of the one nor the strategic skill 
of the other, was a most gallant soldier. "I was a field- 
officer of the trenches,^' he says, ^'when a 13-inch shell 



18« E18T0RY OF SPAIN. 

from the town fell in the midst of us. I called to the 
men to lie down flat, and they instantly obeyed ocdeis, 
except one of them, an Irishman and an old marine, but 
a most worthless drunken dog, who trotted up to the shell, 
the fuse of whidi was still burning, and striking it with 
his spade, knocked tiie fuse out; then taking the immense 
shell in his hands, brought it to me, sp^ng, 'There she is 
for you now, yer 'anner. I've knocked the life out of the 
crater.' *» 

The bedeged brought fifty heavy guns to r^ly to the 
thirty light pieces by which they were assailed, azsd day 
and nigiit tiie bellow of eighty pieces boomed sullenly over 
the downed disy and echoed faintly back frcmi the nearer 
hills, whBe the walls crashed to ^e 8trcA» of the bullet. 
The Bnglirii fire made up by fierceness and accuracy for 
what it lacked In weight; but the sap made no progress 
the guns showed signs of being worn out, and, al^iou£^ 
two apparent breaches had been made, the counterscarp 
was not destroyed. Tet Wellington detennined to attack, 
and, in his characteristic fashion, to attack by night. The 
siege had lasted ten days, and Marmont, wi^ an army 
stronger than his own, was lying within four marches. 
That he had not appeared already €fa the scene was 
wonderful. 

In a general order issued on the evening of the 19th 
Wellington wrote, '^Ciudad Bodrigo mtist be stormed this 
evening.'* The great breach was a sloping gap in the wall 
at its northern angle, about a himdred feet wide. The 
French had crowned it with two guns loaded with grape, 
the slope was strewn with bombs, hand-grenades and bags 
of powder; a great mine pierced it beneath; a deep ditdl 



MODERN SPAIN. 187 

had been cut between the breach and the adjoining ram- 
parts, and these were crowded with riflemen. The third 
division, under General Mackinnon, was to attack the 
breach, its forlorn hope being led by Ensign Mackie, its 
storming party by General Mackinnon himself. The lesser 
breach was a tiny gap, scarcely twenty feet wide, to the 
left of the great breach; this was to be attacked by the 
light division, under Craufurd, its forlorn hope of twenty- 
five men being led by Gurwood, and its storming party by 
George Napier. General Pack, with a Portuguese brigade, 
was to make a sham attack on the eastern face, while a 
fourth attack was to be made on the southern front by 
a company of the 83d and some Portuguese troops. In 
the storming party of the 83d were the Earl of March, 
afterward Duke of Kichmond; Lord Fitzroy Somerset, 
afterward Lord Raglan; and the Prince of Orange — all 
volunteers without Wellington's knowledge! 

At seven o'clock a curious silence fell suddenly on the 
battered city and the engirdling trenches. Not a light 
gleamed from the frowning parapets, not a murmur 
arose from the blackened trenches. Suddenly a shout 
broke out on the right of the English attack; it ran, a 
wave of stormy sound, along the line of the trenches. 
The men who were to attack the great breach leaped 
into the open. In a moment the space between the hos- 
tile lines was covered with the stormers, and the gloomy, 
half-seen face of the great fortress broke into a tempest 
of fire. 

Nothing could be finer than the vehement courage of 
the assault, unless it were the cool and steady fortitude of 
the defense. Swift as was the upward rush of the storm- 



188 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

era, the race of the 6th, 77th, and Oith regiments was 
almost swifter. Scorning to wait for the ladders, they 
leaped into the great ditch, outpaced even the forlorn 
hope, and pushed vehemently up the great breach, while 
their red ranks were torn by shell and shot. The fire, 
too, ran through the tangle of broken stones over which 
they clunbed; the hand-grenades and powder-bags by 
which it was strewn exploded. The men were walking 
on fire I Yet the attack could not be denied. The French- 
men — shooting, stabbing, yelling — were driven behind their 
intrenchments. There the fire of the houses commanding 
the breach came to their help, and they made a gallant 
stand. "Kone would go back on either side, and yet the 
British oould not get forward, and men and officers foiling 
in heaps choked up the passage, which from minute to 
minute was raked with grape from two guns flanking the 
top of the breach at the distance of a few jards. Thus 
striving, and trampling alike upon the dead and the 
wounded, these brave men maintained the combat.'* 

It was the attack on the smaller breach which really 
carried Ciudad Eodrigo; and George Kapier, who led it, 
has left a graphic narrative of the exciting experiences of 
that dreadful night. The light division was to attack, and 
Craufurd, with whom Kapier was a favorite, gave him 
command of the storming party. He was to ask for one 
hundred volunteers from each of the three British regi- 
ments — ^the 43d, 5^, and the rifle corps— in the divieioiL 
Napier halted these reghnents just as they had forded th» 
bitterly cold river on their way to the trenches. "Sol- 
diers,'* he said, "I want one hundred men from ecvch regi- 
ment to form the storming party which is to lead the light 



MODERN SPAIN. 189 

division to-night. Those who will go with me come for- 
ward I" Instantly there was a rush forward of the whole 
division, and Napier had to take his three hundred men 
out of a tumult of nearly one thousand five hundred can- 
didates. He formed them into three companies, under 
Captains Ferguson, Jones, and Mitchell. Gurwood, of 
the 52d, led the forlorn hope, consisting of twenty-five 
men and two sergeants. Wellington himself came to the 
trench and showed Napier and Colbome, through the 
gloom of the early night, the exact position of the breach. 
A staff-oflScer, looking on, said, "Your men are not 
loaded. Why don't you make them load?" Napier re- 
plied, "If we don't do the business with the bayonet we 
shall not do it at all. I shall not load." "Let him 
alone," said Wellington; "let him go his own way." 
Picton had adopted the same grim policy with the third 
division. As each regiment passed him, filing into the 
trenches, his injunction was, "No powder! We'll do the 
thing with the could iron." 

A party of Portuguese oarrying bags filled with grass 
were to run with the storming party and throw the bags 
into the ditch, as the leap was too deep for the men. But 
the Portuguese hesitated, the tumult of the attack on the 
great breach suddenly broke on the night, and the forlorn 
hope went running up, leaped into the ditch a depth of 
eleven feet, and clambered up the steep slope beyond, 
while Napier with his stormers came with a run behind 
^em. In the dark for a moment the breach was lost, 
but found again, and up the steep quarry of broken stone 
the attack swept. 

About two-thirds of the way up, Napier's arm was 



190 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

smashed by a grape-shot, and he fell. His men, checked 
for a moment, lifted their muskets to the gap above them, 
whence the French were firing vehemently, and forgetting 
their pieces were unloaded, snapped them. *'Push on with 
the bayonet, men!" shouted Napier, as he lay bleeding. 
The officers leaped to the front, the men with a stem shout 
followed; they were crushed to a front of not more than 
three or four. They had to climb without firing a shot in 
reply up to the muzzles of the French muskets. 

But nothing could stop the men of the light division. 
A 24-pounder was placed across the narrow gap in the 
ramparts; the stormers leaped over it, and the 43d and 
52d, coming up in sections abreast, followed. The 4dd 
wheeled to the right toward the great breach, the 5%d to 
the left, sweeping the ramparts as they went. 

Meanwhile the other two attacks had broken into the 
town; but at the great breach the dreadful fight still 
raged, until the 43d, coming swiftly along the ramparta^ 
and brushing all opposition aside, took the defense in the 
rear. The British there had, as a matter of fact, at that 
exact moment pierced the French defense. The two guns 
that scourged the breach had wrought deadly havoo 
among the stormers, and a sergeant and two privates 
of the 88th — Irishmen all, and whose names deserve to 
be preserved— Brazel, Kelly, and Swan— laid down their 
firelocks that they might climb more lightly, and, armed 
only with their bayonets, forced themselves through the 
embrasure among the French gunners. They were furi- 
ously attacked, and Swan's arm was hewed off by a 
saber stroke; but they stopped the service of the gun, 
slew five or six of the French gunners, and held the post 



MODERN SPAIN. 191 

until the men of the 5th, climbing behind them, broke 
into the battery. 

So Ciudad Bodrigo was won, and its governor sorren^ 
dered his sword to the youthful lieutenant leading the 
forlorn hope of the light division, who, with smoke-black- 
ened face, torn imiform, and staggering from a dreadful 
wound, still kept at the head of his men. 

In the eleven days of the siege Wellington lost one 
thousand three hundred men and officers, out of whom 
six hundred and fifty m^i and sixty officers were struck 
down on the slopes of the breaches. Two notable soldiers 
died in the attack-— Craufurd, the iamouB leader of the 
light division, as he brought his men up to the lesser 
breaxsh; and Mackmnon, who ccmmiaQded a brigade of 
the third division, at the great breach. Mackinnon was 
a gallant Highlander, a soldier of great promise, beloved 
by his men. His "children,'* as he called them, followed 
him up the great breach till the bursting of a French 
mine destroyed all the leading files, including their gen* 
eral. Craufurd was buried in the lesser breach itself, 
and Mackinnon in the great breach — fitting graves for 
soldiers so gallant. 

Alison says that with the rush of the English storm- 
ers up the breaches of Ciudad Rodrigo "began the fall of 
the French empire.'* That siege, so fierce and brilliant, 
was, as a matter of fact, the first of that swift-following 
succession of strokes which drove the French in i*uin out 
of Spain, and it coincided in point of time with the turn 
of the tide against Napoleon in Russia. 

But, as already noted, the climax of the war occurred 
at Vittoria. Wellington, overtaking the French at that 



192 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

place, inflicted on them a defeat which drove in utter 
rout one hundred and twenty thousand veteran troops 
from Spain. There is no more brilliant chapter in mili- 
tary history; and, at its close, to quote Napier's clarion- 
like sentences, "the English general, emerging from the 
chaos of the Peninsular struggle, stood on the summit of 
the Pyrenees a recognized conqueror. From those lofty 
pinnacles the clangor of his trumpets pealed clear and 
loud, and the splendor of his genius appeared as a flam^ 
ing beacon to warring nations.** 

The victory not only freed Spain from its invaders; it 
restored the spirit of the allies. The close of the armis- 
tice was followed by a imion of Austria with the forces 
of Prussia and the Czar; and in October a final over- 
throw of Napoleon at Leipzig forced the French army to 
fall back in rout across the Rhine. The war now hur- 
ried to its close. Though held at bay for a while by the 
sieges of San Sebastian and Pampelima, as well as by an 
obstinate defense of the Pyrenees, Wellington succeeded 
in the very month of the triumph at Leipzig in winning 
a victory on the Bidassoa which enabled him to enter 
France. He was soon followed by the allies. On the 
last day of 1813 their forces crossed the Rhine; and a 
third of France passed, without opposition, into their 
hands. For two months more Napoleon maintained a 
wonderful struggle with a handful of raw conscripts 
against their overwhelming numbers; while in the south, 
Soult, forced from his intrenched camp near Bayonne and 
defeated at Orthes, fell back before Wellington on Tou- 
louse. Here their two armies met in April in a stubborn 
and indecisive engagement. But though neither leader 



> 

I— I 
n 

> 



V 

& 




MODERN SPAIN, 198 

knew it, the war was even then at an end. The etrng- 
gle of Napoleon hunsdf had ended at the cloBe of March 
with the surrender of Paris; and the submissioii of the 
capital was at once followed by the abdication of the em* 
peror and the return of Ferdinand. 

After the conviiMons it had endured Spain, required 
a period ai firm but conciliatory govenunent; but the ill* 
fate of the country gave the throne at this crisis to the 
worst of her Bourbon kings. Ferdinand YII. had oevier 
possessed the good qualities which popular creduli^ bad 
assigned to him, and he had learned nothing in big icmt 
years' captivity except an aptitude for lying and intrigue. 
He had no conception of the duties of a ruler; bis public 
conduct was regulated by pride and superstition, and his 
private life was stained by the grossest sensual indul- 
gence. 

But Spain was not allowed to work out its own sal> 
vation. Europe was dominated at this time by the Holy 
Alliance, which disguised a resolution to repress popular 
liberties and to maintain despotism under a pretended 
zeal f or piet»y, justice and brotherly love. At the Con> 
gress of Yerona (October, 1822)» France, Austria, Russia 
and Prussia agreed upon armed intervention in Spdn, in 
spite of ^e protest of Canning on the part of England. 
Bpcdn was to be (Milled upon to alter her constitution and 
to grant grater liberty to the king, and if an unsatisfao* 
tory answer were received France was authorized to take 
active measures. The demand was unhesitatingly refusedf 
and a French army, 100,000 strong, at once entered Sj^am 
under the Duke of Angouleme (A{Mi!, 1823). Ko e&ctive 
r^sistanoe was maddi and Ifadrid was enleied biy tiie &i« 



194 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

vaders (May 23). The Cortes, however, had carried off 
the king to SeviJle, whence they again retreated to Cadiz. 
The bombardment of that city terminated the revolution 
and Ferdinand was released (October 1). His first act 
was to revoke everything that had been done since 1819. 
The Inquisition was not restored, but the secular tribu- 
nals took a terrible revenge upon the leaders of the re- 
bellion. The protest of the Duke of Angouleme against 
these cruelties was unheeded. Even the fear of revolt, 
the last check upon despotism, was removed by the pres- 
ence of the French army, which remained in Spain till 
1827. But Spain had to pay for the restoration of the 
royal absolutism, as Canning backed up his protest against 
the intervention of France by acknowledging the inde- 
pendence of the Spanish colonies. 

Ferdinand VII. was enabled to finish his worthless 
and disastrous reign in comparative peace. In 1829 he 
married a fourth wife, Maria Christina of Naples, and 
at the same time he issued a "Pragmatic Sanction'* 
abolishing the Salic law in Spain. No one expected any 
fxractical results from this edict, but a formal protest was 
made against it by the king's brothers, Carlos and Fran- 
cisco, and also by the French and Neapolitan Bourbons. 
In the next year, however, the queen gave birth to a 
daughter, Isabella, who was proclaimed as queen on her 
father's death in 1833, while her mother undertook the 
office of regent. Don Carlos at once asserted his inten- 
tion of maintaining the Salic law, and rallied round him 
all the supporters of absolutism, especially the inhabitants 
of the Basque Provinces. Christina was compelled to rely 
upon the Liberals, and to conciliate them by the grant 



MODERN SPAIN, 195 

cyf a Gonstitutioii, the eetatuto real, which eetablished two 
chambers chceen l^ indirect eleotioiu Bat this oonstitu* 
tion, drawn np nnder the influence of Louis Hiil^ipe d 
France, faikd to satisfy Hie advanced liberals, and the 
Christinos split into two parties, the Moderados and Pro- 
gresistas. In 1886 tile latter party ext(^ted horn the 
regent tl^ revi^ dt the constitntioa <rf 1819. All Hiis 
time the government was involTed in a desperate stmg^ 
gle with the Carttate, who at first gained considetahle 
successes under Zumalacaisegni and Oateera. But tiie 
death of Zumalacarregai in 18Sd and tbe support dt 
France and HBngjIand ulUmatefy gave the regent the 
upper band, and in 1889 ber geosfal, BEfiartecc, lofoed 
the Basque Provinces to siAmit to UnbeOa* Don Carlos 
renounced hk daime in favc^ of his eldest sen. another 
Carlos, and retbred to Trieste, whesB he died in 180K, 
Christma now tried to sever herself from tlie Progresistas^ 
and to govern witii the help of the moderate party "^^ 
enjoyed the patronage <^ LouB Phil^ipe. But Kngland^ 
jealous €i French influence at Madrid, 11u!ew the wejg^ 
of her influ^ice on to the dde of the Badicals, wIk) found 
a powerful leader in E^tartero. In 1840 Christina had to 
retire to France, and BSspartero was recognized as regent 
by the Cortes. But his elevation was resented by the 
other officers, while his suhservi^ice to Bngland made 
him unpopular, and in 1843 he also had to go into exile. 
Isabella was now declared of age. Christina returned to 
Madrid, and the Moderados under Narvaez obtained com- 
plete control over the government. This was a great vie* 
tory for France, and Louis Philippe abused his success by 
n^^tiating the infamous ^'Spanish marriages." A bus- 



198 BISTORY OF SPAIN. 

band was found for Isabella in her cousin, Francis of 
Assis, whose recommendation in French eyes was the im- 
probability of his begetting children. On the same day 
tiie queen's sister, Maria Louisa, was married to Louis 
Philippe's son, the Duke of Montpensier. By this means 
it was hoped to secure the reversion of the Spanish throne 
for the House of Orleans. The scheme recoiled on the 
heads of those who framed it. The alienation of England 
gave a fatal impulse to the fall of Louis Philippe, while 
the subsequent birth of children to Isabella deprived the 
Hontpensier marriage of all importance. 

Spanish history during the reign of Isabella 11. pre- 
sents a dismal picture of fac1d«n and intrigue. The 
queen herself sought compensatlcm for her unhappy mar- 
riage in sensual indulgence, and tried to cover the disso- 
luteness of her private life by a superstitious devotion to 
teligion and by throwing her influence onto the side of 
the clerical and reactional parly. Every now and then 
the Progresistas and Moderados forced themselves into 
office, but their mutual jealousy prevented them from 
acquiring any permanent hold upon the government. In 
1866 Isabella was induced to take vigorous measures 
against the Liberal opposition. Narvaez was appointed 
chief minister; and the most prominent Liberals, Serrano, 
Prim and O'Donnell, had to seek safety in exile. The 
QovUgA were dissolved, and many of the deputies were 
transported to the Canary Islands. The ascendency of the 
court party was maintained by a rigorous persecution, 
which was continued after Narvaez's death (April, 1868) 
by Gk>nzales Bravo. Conamon dangers succeeded at last 
in combining the various sections of the Liberals for 



MODERN SPAIN. 197 

mutual defense, and the people, disgusted by the scandals 
of the court and the contemptible camarilla which sur- 
rounded the queen, rallied to their side. In September, 
1868, Serrano and Prim returned to Spain, where they 
raised the standard of revolt and offered the people the 
bribe of universal suffrage. The revolution was speedily 
accomplished and Isabella fled to France, but the suc- 
cessful rebels were at once confronted with the difficulty 
of finding a successor for her. During the interregnum 
Serrano undertook the regency and the Cortes drew up a 
new constitution by which an hereditary king was to 
rule in conjunction with a senate and a popular cham- 
ber. As no one of the Bourbon candidates for the throne 
was acceptable, it became necessary to look around for 
some foreign prince. The offer of the crown to Leopold 
of Hohenzollern - Sigmaringen excited the jealousy of 
France, and gave Napoleon III. the opportunity of pick- 
ing a quarrel, which proved fatal to himself, with the 
rising state of Prussia. At last a king was found (1870) 
in Amadeus of Aosta, the second son of Victor Emman- 
uel, who made an honest effort to discharge the difficult 
office of a constitutional king in a country which was 
hardly fitted for constitutional government. But he found 
the task too hard and too distasteful, and resigned in 1873. 
A provisional republic was now formed, of which Castelar 
was the guiding spirit. But the Spaniards, trained to re- 
gard monarchy with superstitious reverence, had no sym- 
pathy with republican institutions. Don Carlos seized the 
opportunity to revive the claim of inalienable male suc- 
cession, and raised the standard of revolt in the Basque 
Provinces, where his name was stiU a power. The dis- 



198 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

orders of the democrats and the approach of civil war 
threw the responsibility of government upon the army. 
The Cortes were dissolved by a military coup d*Uat; 
Castelar threw up his office in disgust; and the admin- 
istration was undertaken by a committee of officers. An- 
archy was suppressed with a strong hand, but it was 
obvious that order could only be restored by reviving the 
monarchy. Foreign princes were no longer thought of, 
and the crown was offered to and accepted by Alfonso 
XII., the young son of the exiled Isabella (1874). His 
first task was to terminate the Carlist war, which still 
continued in the north, and this was successfully accom- 
plished in 1876. Time was required to restore the pros- 
perity of Spain under a peaceful and orderly government 
and to consolidate by prescription the authority of the re- 
stored dynasty. Unfortunately a premature death carried 
off Alfonso XII. in 1885, before he could complete the 
work which circumstances laid upon him. The regency 
was intrusted to his widow, Christina of Austria, and the 
birth of a posthumous son (May 17, 1886), who is now the 
titular king of Spain, has excited a feeling of pitjnbg 
loyalty which may help to secure the Bourbon dynasty ia 
the last kingdc»n which is left to it 



CHAPTER IX 

COLONIAL SPAIN 

COLUMBUS— SIGHTING OF SAN SALVADOR— RETURN OF 

COLUMBUS — FOUNDING OF AN EMPIRE — MEXICO AND 

PERU— THE WEST INDIES— GERMS OF REBELLION 

In August, 1492, Columbus sailed on his voyage of 
discovery. In September, 1898, his remains were con- 
veyed from the "New World to the Old. Between those 
two dates an empire rose and fell. The causes which led 
to the one and the effects which precipitated the other 
may now be conveniently considered. 

In earlier years Cadiz was a famous seaport. Her 
sons were immemorial explorers. The presentiment of a 
land across the sea was theirs by intuition. Constantly 
they extended their expeditions, and would have extended 
them still further had not the Church interfered. The 
spirit of enterprise, checked as heretical, revived cent- 
uries later in a neighboring land. It was Portugal that 
it inspired. There the work of exploration and discovery 
was resumed. The island of Madeira was reached in 1420, 
the Azores annexed in 1431. But it was along the Afri- 
can coast that Portuguese effort was mainly directed. 
Tradition asserted that the entire continent had been cir- 
cumnavigated centuries before by voyagers from Phoe- 

Dicia; but, as no details were recorded, the adventure was 

(199) 



200 HISIORY OF SPAIN. 

regarded as something more than dubious. However, 
the west coast began now to be systematically explored. 
KuSo Tristao entered the Senegal River in 1445; a year 
later Dinia Dias, a fellow-navigator, sailed as far as Cape 
Verd. The equator was not crossed until 1471, the Congo 
was revealed in 1484; and in 1486 the crowning feat of 
all was accomplished, when Bartholomew Diaz roimded 
the Stormy Cape, soon to become known as the Cape of 
Good Hope, and opened up communication with the East 
by water, instead of overland or by the indirect route of 
the Red Bea, which necessitated the transshipment of all 
merchandise conveyed that way. 

The expedition to the west which Columbus ultimately 
directed was conceived by him in 1474, and unfolded to 
John II., king of Portugal, by whom, however, it was 
rejected; whereupon Columbus dispatched his brother Bar* 
tholomew to enter into negotiations with Henry VII. of 
England, and after assuring himself that neither Qenoa 
nor Venice were likely to lend him a willing ear, much 
less ready help, he repaired to the south of Spain in I486. 

Had Bartholomew not fallen into the hands of ptmtes, 
and so been prevented from reaching his destination for 
several years, it is more than probable tiiat the credit aa 
well as the profit of the discovery of America would have 
fallen at once to England, as Henry had both the means 
and the inclination to indulge in some such venture, pro- 
vided it was not too costly, and showed any reaaonable 
prospect of success. As it was, Christopher was 1^ to 
pursue his pleadings before the Spanish Court. 

It ^^ms an unfortunate time to pat forward any fxro* 
poeab »lculated to divert the wealth and strengtii of tiie 



COLONIAL SPAIN. 301 

kingdom beyond its own borders; for Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella were then in the very midst of the campaign which 
ended in the final overthrow of the Moorish dominion in 
the Peninsula. 

Ultimately, however, after the fall of Granada and 
eighteen years of waiting, his proposals were accepted 
by Isabella and his hopes realized. A royal edict con- 
stituted him perpetual and hereditary admiral and viceroy 
of any territories discovered, together with a tenth of 
any profits derived therefrom. With this edict and funds 
advanced by the receiver of ecclesiastical revenues, Co- 
lumbus hastened to the port of Palos. There, two broth- 
ers by the name of Pinzon aiding, he got together a crew 
of a hundred and twenty men, a scratch armada of three 
leaky tubs — the "Santa Maria," the "Pinta" and the 
"Nina" — and, on the 3d of August, 1492, weighed anchor 
for pastures new. 

Columbus, as admiral of the fleet, conamanded the 
"Santa Maria"; the two Pinzons, Martin Alonzo and 
Vicente Yanez, the "Pinta" and "Nina" respectively. 
The expressed object of the voyage was to convert the 
Grand Khan, supposed to be the great potentate of the 
Far East, to Christianity; and Columbus never doubted 
but that in due course he would arrive at Japan, or ZU 
pangu, as it had been named by the Venetian explorer, 
Marco Polo, who had reached it by an overland route 
more than a century before, and had described its won- 
ders, together with those of Cathay or China, through 
which he passed on his way. The one condition imposed 
was, that the squadron should not touch at any place on 
the African continent, claimed to be under Portuguese 



202 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

jiirisdiction, as that would have kd to immediate hoBtill* 
ties between the two countries. 

The details of the voyage are sufficiently familiar to 
dispense with narration here. It will suffice to note that 
after seventy days the island of San Salvador, as it was 
then named, hove in sight; that on the 28th of October, 
sixteen days later, Cuba was discovered, and that on the 
6th of December Hayti was reached. 

Several circumstances then made it advisable for Co* 
lumbus to return to Spain without farther delay. He 
had seen enough to be convinced that a much larger 
force than he had under his command would be neceeh 
sary to make the subjugation of these newly acquired 
territories efiEective; news of the discovery might reach 
Europe before him, and be taken advantage ci by some 
other sovereign than the odb to whom b& was devoted; 
and he had now sufficient treasure at various kinds to 
convince the most skeptical of the oomfdete success of h» 
enterprise. After constructing a email iot% and leaving 
A portion of the crew, at their own desire, to garrison il 
until he should return, he set sail for home with the 
'*Nina" on the 4th of January, 1493. 

Reaching Palos on the 18th of March, Ck)lumbus was 
fmmediatdy sununoned to Barcelona, where Ferdinand 
and Isabella were then domksiled, made a triumi^ial entry 
Into the city, and, on his arrival at the rc^ai resi de noe^ 
was welcomed by the king and queen in person, who ccxii* 
manded him to be seated l^ their side, while he related 
Hie account of his adventures. 

Meanwhile the report of the discovery had spread. 
P<»rtugal sought to take advantage of h through the 



COLONIAL 8PAUL fM 

HiBory that all heathen conntrieB were io the gift of tto 
Pope, which gift a Boll had abeady oonfinned. Ba^ 
Spain protesting, a subsequent Bnll contoned the PMo- 
guese in their existing poeseesions, and granted them aB 
territory that should be discovered east of a line drawn 
from north to south, one hundred leagues west of the 
Azores, while the Spaniards were to enjoy exclusive do- 
minion over everything west of it. 

This was regarded as so unsatisfactory by Portugal, 
that at its instigation, negotiations between the two eotm» 
tries were opened, cmd resulted the following year asi th» 
conclusion of the Treafy of Tordedllas, by which il wm 
agreed to move the Hne three hundred and seventy 
leagues west of the Asotesi a most important chasig^ 
because by it Portugal subsequently established Its elaia 
to the Brazils, a portion of which was found to fa!! easi 
of the line of demarcation, while it could urge the farther 
plea of having been first in the field, through the acd* 
dental deviation of Cabral. At any rate, the whole world 
outside Europe was leased in perpetuity to Spain and 
Portugal; and had the pretensions of the Holy See ill 
things temporal as well as spiritual continued to be recog* 
nized, neither England, France, nor Germany could tc^- 
day own a square yard of territory in the three greatesi 
continents of the world. 

While the negotiations were in progress, preparatlcMis 
for a second expedition on a vastly greater scale were ra|K 
idly pushed forward. The direction of them was intrusted 
to a cleric named Fonseca, a capable man of business, bol 
who tof some reason or other conceived a violent dkli^ 
to Columbus, and threw evesy obstacle in his way. The 



804 HISTORY OF SPAIK 

eagerness to embark on this second voyage was far more 
marked than the reluctance exhibited in the first, and the 
best blood of Spain pressed into the service. The number 
of adventurers was originally limited to a thousand; but 
the apph'cations were so numerous, from those who be- 
lieved that fortunes were waiting to be picked up in the 
New World, that this was raised to twelve hundred, and 
fifteen hundred actually sailed in seventeen vessels from 
the Bay of Cadiz on the 25th of September, 1493. All 
was keen anticipation during the voyage, the disappoint- 
ments only commenced at its termination. 

**Into these," says Mr. R. J. Root, whose account we 
quote, "there is no occasion to enter now. The main point 
of interest is, that a sufficiently large force of Spaniards 
had taken part in the enterprise to confirm the possession 
of the New World to their country, and defeat any at- 
tempts that Portugal might be likely to make to filch it 
away. After establishing a settlement at Isabella on the 
north of Hayti, or Hispaniola, as it was then named, 
Columbus was free to prosecute further explorations, the 
principal one being to sail along the southern shores of 
Cuba; but, after continuing his voyage to within a few 
miles of its western extremity, he arrived at the conclusion 
that it was the mainland, and reported to that effect — nor 
was it until after his death that it was proved to be an 
island. Everything was claimed for the Spanish crown; 
and, as there were absolutely no competitors, it can well 
be understood how the entire group of islands constituting 
ihe "West Indies became Spanish colonies, 

"Various causes compelled Columbus to relinquish hlB 
exploratioa and return, first to Hispaniola and then to 



COLONIAL SPAIN. 20« 

Spain. For one thing, the two vessels with which he set 
sail were ill-provisioned. With that confidence in his own 
judgment which was so characteristic of the man, he relied 
upon encountering at no great distance those civilized, or 
at least semi-civilized, nations of which he had come in 
search, but instead he met only the fierce tribes of Cuba 
and Jamaica, who offered resistance, not welcome, and 
arrows in lieu of food. 

**0n his return to the colony, affairs were in a most 
unsatisfactory condition. The last thing most of the colo- 
nists dreamed of when they left their native shores was 
work. They had gone out, as they fondly imagined, to 
pick up the gold as it lay at their feet, and when they 
had accumulated sufficient, meant to return and enjoy it. 
Though Columbus had never promised, nor even suggested 
anything of the sort, his brilliant descriptions and antici- 
pations were undoubtedly responsible for the ideas so freely 
indulged, and the indignation against him rose just as rap- 
idly as hopes were blasted. Complaints were finding their 
way to Spain, and lest he should be prejudiced in the eyes 
of his sovereigns, he determined to embark thence and 
render a personal account of his stewardship. 

"The voyage home was, if anything, more protracted, 
and entailed greater hardships, than the previous one, 
Columbus arrived at Cadiz on the 1st June, 1496, and 
met with a warmer reception than he had dared to hope 
for. But intrigue was busy, and his arch-enemy Fonseca, 
who was by this time in almost undisputed control of colo- 
nial affairs, threw numerous and persistent obstacles in 
the way of his fitting out another expedition. The stories 
told by returned colonists of the want and suffering they 



206 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

had endured were not conducive to others volunteering for 
the service, and it was only on the 30th May, 1498, that 
the admiral was again able to set sail from San Lucar 
with a small fleet of six vessels, manned almost entirely 
by convicts specially released. 

"A more southerly course was taken than on either of 
the previous occasions, and the first place touched was the 
island of Trinidad. Sailing round it from the southwest, 
the ships were suddenly caught and swept along by a 
mighty current, which Columbus discovered to be of fresh 
water, and rightly judged to be poured out of some vast 
river. He had, in fact, reached the coast of South Amer- 
ica, and was in the waters of the Orinoco as they rushed 
to mingle with the ocean. The natives proved of a more 
friendly disposition as well as of superior type to those 
encountered in many of the islands; and as they possessed 
gold, and also something still more precious, pearls, every 
encouragement was given them to trade. They were just 
as eager after the trumpery toys of the Old World as the 
inhabitants of San Salvador had been the first time they 
were ever exhibited in the New, and we may be sure the 
bargains made were very profitable to the Spaniards. Still, 
these were not the people Columbus had come in search of, 
and his inquiries and labors were diligently directed to the 
discovery of a passage which should lead him still further 
west to the dominions of the Grand Khan. 

"After some time vainly spent in exploring the coast 
with this object, an affection of the eyes compelled him to 
desist and make once more for Hispaniola, where he had 
left his brother Bartholomew as governor during his ab- 
sence. A strange welcome awaited him, however. In 



COLONIAL SPAIN. 307 

response to the continued complaints of the colonists, a 
commissioner had been dispatched from Spain to inquire 
into their grievances, and certain powers were intrusted 
to him to assume authority in the island in case of neces- 
sity. Deeply impressed with a sense of his own impor- 
tance, Francisco Bobadilla, the officer appointed, immedi- 
ately on his arrival b^an to act in the most lecMess and 
arbitrary manner; and the discoverer of the New World, 
without any warning, found himself arrested, loaded with 
chains, thrown into prison, and finally sent home to Spain 
in this ignominious fashion. 

"Great was the public, still greater the royal indigna- 
tion, when he arrived in this sorry plight; every effort 
was made to soothe the feelings so deeply wounded by this 
dire insult, and Bobadilla would have paid dearly for his 
temerity had he survived to answer for his misdeeds. But 
news had reached Spain of the wonderful riches of the 
Gulf of Paria some time before the arrival of Columbus, 
and the malignant and untiring Fonseca, in direct contra- 
vention of the charter conveying the rights to the admiral, 
stimulated private enterprise to follow in the track, taking 
the utmost possible advantage of whatever information he 
had gained in his official capacity, and imparting it to 
others. An expedition was fitted out under Alonso de 
Ojeda, one of the most dare-devil adventurers who ever 
quitted the shores of his own or any other country, and 
whose marvelous exploits in Hispaniola had already ex- 
cited the wonder and admiration of men long accustomed 
to feats of skill and courage. Accompanying him was 
Amerigo Vespucci, a Venetian navigator, who strangely 
enough was destined to give his name to the whole of the 



808 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

vast continent which he was about to visit for the first 
time, though he never accomplished anything of practical 
importance in it. Several other ships were fitted out, in- 
cluding a caravel of fifty tons' burden by Pedro Alonso 
Kino, which performed the most lucrative voyage of any 
vessel or squadron equipped up to that time, and returned 
home well freighted with pearls and other costly treasure. 
This was quite sufficient to stimulate ambition as well as 
greed, and when Columbus arrived he had the mortifica- 
tion of learning that others were actively exploiting his 
preserves. 

"While these events were happening, another enter- 
prise was undertaken quite beyond the cognizance of the 
Spanish authorities. Bartholomew Columbus, it will be 
remembered, had proceeded on a mission to Henry VII. 
some years previous; and when the English monarch 
learned that the most sanguine anticipations had been 
realized, he was anxious to share in the results. As 
early as 1495 he endeavored to equip and dispatch a 
squadron of his own, but it was not until two years 
later that Sebastian Cabot, despite the existence of the 
Papal Bull, set sail from Bristol. Steering a direct west- 
erly course, he struck the coast of ISTe wfoundland, and 
leisurely sailed south almost to the extreme point of Flor- 
ida, ere he resumed his homeward journey. The Spanish 
government naturally protested against this infringement 
of its rights, and Henry found it politic to listen, as he 
was then in close alliance, and engaged in negotiating 
the marriage between his son and Katharine of Aragon, 
which subsequently proved so pregnant to the religious 
and ecclesiastical destinies of England. It was at a later 



COLONIAL SPAIN. 209 

period, and under totally different circumstances, that the 
Anglo-Saxon race was to occupy and overrun the north- 
ern continent. 

"Columbus himself was spared to undertake one more 
Tojage, and this time it was to be confined exclusively 
to the continent, he being absolutely forbidden to land 
at Hispaniola, where Nicolas Ovando, with a force of all 
sorts and condiiions of men, numbering two thousand five 
hundred, had been installed as governor; and so jealous 
was he of any interference with his prerogatives that, 
when the admiral was driven by stress of weather to 
take shelter in the harbor of San Domingo, he was or- 
dered to quit instantly. 

''This proved the most disastrous of all his voyages. 
After exploring the coasts of Honduras and Central Amer- 
ica generally, in search of the non-existent channel, until 
the provisions were in such a state that they could only 
be eaten in the dark, it was decided to land, despite the 
fierce opposition of the natives, and plant a permanent 
settlement under Bartholomew, who accompanied his 
brother. This, however, had to be abandoned; and on 
the way back the only remaining vessel ran agroimd in 
Dry Harbor in Jamaica, and became a total wreck, the 
most incredible suffering, aggravated by constant mutiny, 
being experienced, until the remnant of the crew was 
eventually relieved. 

"Columbus having shown the way to the mainland, 
as well as the islands, it was left to others to reveal the 
vast extent and natural wealth of what he had discov 
ered, and he died on the 20th May, 1506, in complete ig- 
norance of many of the most important facts which his 



210 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

genius and tenacity permitted to be made known for the 
first time to the civilized world. 

^^ Columbus and his .immediate followers hit upon the 
most unpromising part of the American Continent, where 
the damp, hot atmoBphere, with its resulting rank and 
profuse v^etation, makes human existence intolerable if 
not wellnig^ impossible. As the land was known to con- 
tain gold, however, the most persistent effoarts were made 
to settle in it, and two regular governments were estab* 
Hshed mider Alonzo de Ojeda and Diego de Nicuessa re- 
spectively. Nothing but disaster resulted for many a long 
year, and the greatest difficulties were experienced in ex- 
tending or ^ilarging them in any direction bat coastwise. 

'^Kareow as the isUuaus is in the part selected, it ap* 
peared impeoetraye, imtil eveatuaQy the magio word g(4d 
encouraged a few h(M sfmiB to overcome every obstacla 
Wherever tiie adventurers went in]an«l th^ heard of a 
great aea and vast abundance of tiie precioas metal in an 
unknown land beyoniL After incredible hardships, ^aao& 
Nunes de Balboa and a haniful d ftllowers fenced their 
way through the thiokete anil ewampe, lecalei the nMon* 
tain range which runs like a backbone akng the is(imiafl» 
and were rewarded tac their pains wheia tbey reached ih» 
summit by the si^t of the great sooiliem sea lying at 
theb feet This occurred aa ike 96tk S^itenber, 1613, 
and on the following day tiie party descended the west- 
em slopes; Vasoo Nunez, as its leader and commandir, 
taking possession of .the Pacific Ocean on behalf of the 
King of Spain, with all the ceremonies and formalities 
customary on those occasions. 

''How to take advantage of it was the question? Fat 



COLONIAL SPAIN, 211 

south, beyond where vision could reach, lay the golden 
land. They were without ships or means of conveyance 
of any sort, and the shore upon which they were now 
stranded was dangerous as well as inhospitable. The ob- 
servant and ingenious mind of Nunez, inferior only to 
that of Columbus, evolved the idea of transporting mate- 
rial across the isthmus for the construction of a fleet to 
undertake the subjugation of all countries bordering on 
the Southern Sea; and such was the work eventually 
accomplished, though not by Nunez, who fell a victim 
to the jealousy and treachery of Pedrarias Davila, a new 
governor dispatched from Spain. It was left to one of 
his lieutenants, Francisco Pizarro, to set forth on a defi" 
nite eicpedition more than ten years later; and it was not 
until nearly twenty years had elapsed that Peru was dis- 
covered, and the rich kingdom of the Incas added to the 
spoils of the Castilian monarch. 

"Meanwhile, exploration had been busy on the eastern 
side of the continent. Cuba, realized at length to be an 
igland, was regularly colonized in 1511, and the governor, 
Diego Velasquez, being an enterprising and ambitious 
man, dispatched an expedition westward. The great pen- 
insula of Yucatan was reached, and the officers of the 
little squadron were struck by the much higher state of 
civilization exhibited by the natives than by any others 
hitherto met with either in the islands or on the main- 
land. The news of this led to the subsequent expedition 
of Cortes, the story of whose conquest of Mexico reads 
more like a fairy tale than the narrative of actual events 
and hard realities. 

"The years 1519, 1520 and 1521 were occupied by this, 



Uft HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

the greatest of all the enterprises undertaken by Spain in 
the New World. Nor was there any lack of activity in 
other directions. Juan Ponce sailed from Porto Rico 
in 1512, in search of a spring whose waters insured per- 
ennial youth to whoever drank of them, and found and 
annexed Florida instead. More than one navigator 
cruised southward as far as the Rio de la Plata, and 
in 1520 Magellan reached the extremity of the southern 
continent, and passed through the straits which bear his 
name. Kor was Cortes idle after he had siooomplished 
his great work. North and south he sought to add to 
the territory of New Spain, until all the countries of Cen- 
tral America on one side, and the peninsula of California 
on the other, were brought under its sway. In less than 
half a century from the day Columbus &ist set foot on 
San Salvador, the entire continent, from Labrador to Pata- 
gonia, had been vidted, and by far the greater part of it 
annexed to, and nominally ruled by, the CastiHan crown. 
"To return, however, to Hispaniola. The rapid ex- 
haustion which mismanagement produced there, joined to 
the absence of gold, led to the creation of other colonies. 
The discovery of the fisheries, first at Paria, and then in 
the islands of the Pacific, opened up an unexpected source 
of wealth; but it was not until Montezuma offered his 
munificent gifts to Cortes, to induce the latter to quit tho 
shores of Mexico, that the first great reservoir of the pre* 
cious metals was tapped. Still, it must be remembered 
that the great stores of gold discovered, first in Mexico, 
and subsequently in Peru, did not in themselves imply 
that these countries were capable of continuing to produce 
unlimited quantities. They were the acciunulations of 



COLONIAL SPAIN. 213 

many years, possibly of many centuries; for, as there 
was no foreign trade, everything produced which could 
not be consumed had necessarily to be preserved or de- 
stroyed. 

**It may be wondered what value gold possessed in the 
ideas of these people. That it was held in nothing like 
the same esteem as by Europeans is certain; but in Peru, 
at any rate, its production and preservation were assured, 
from the fact that it was regarded as tears wept by the 
Sim, which was the god of the people, whose Incas, or 
rulers, were called the Children of the Sun. In neither 
case, then, is it surprising that the treasure was not clung 
to with more tenacity. Both Montezuma and Atahualpa 
aet a higher value upon many other things; and the quan- 
tities seized by Cortes and Pizarro and their respective fol- 
lowers, vast though it appeared in their eyes, and as it 
really was in those days, was parted with, with scarcely 
a pang of regret. That secured by Pizarro was by far 
the greater spoO, and was supposed to be the price of the 
freedom of the Inca himself, who offered to fill a room 
35 feet by 17, and as high as a man could reach, with 
gold plate in exchange for it. He did not quite succeed, 
because Pizarro treacherously put him to death before the 
task was completed, yet the amount reahzed for distribu- 
tion was equivalent to something like three and a half 
millions sterling ($17,600,000) of the money of to-day, and 
enriched the commonest foot-soldier beyond the dreams of 
avarice. 

"It was silver, not gold, moreover, which eventually 
made both countries at once the wonder and the envy of 
the civilized world. The richest mines were unknown to 



214 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

the Indians, having only been discovered af fcer the Spaniah 
conquest. Those of Zacotecas in Mexico were first worked 
in 1532, while the more famous Potosi lode in Peru was 
laid bare in 1545, by a native scrambling up the side of a 
moimtain in pursuit of some llamas which had strayed 
from his flock, and uprooting the shrubs to which he clung: 
for support. 

"In the West Indies, meanwhile, the larger islands, 
like Porto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica, were gradually colo- 
nized, but the smaller ones were left alone; it can well be 
understood that in the absence of any proved deposits of 
gold they were scarcely worth attention, and it was suffi- 
cient to ke^ a watch over them to defend them from the 
incursions of other nations. With the conquest of Mexico, 
however, the center of gravity was moved further west, 
and still more so when followed by that of Peru, because 
the only known route from the latter was by Panama and 
across the isthmus. 

^'These territories were ^together too great for efficient 
oversight; that of Mexico stretching from Calif omia in the 
north to Venezuela in tlie south, and including not only 
the West Indies, but the far removed Philippines, while 
that of Lima embraced the whole of South America hoih 
east and west of the Andes. The great territories included 
in the present Republics of Argentina, Uruguay and Para- 
guay were looked upon as of little value, as they contained 
neither gold nor silver; and as every attempt made to set- 
tle them only seemed to end in failure, little attention was 
given to their affairs. They became, indeed, a distinct 
source of loss to Spain, as they were found useful for pur- 
poses of contraband trade; and eventually the gold and 



COLONIAL SPAIN. 215 

silver, which oould not be safely smuggled through the 
ordinary ports of shipment, were conveyed across the 
Andes and down the rivers to places of embarkation on 
the Amazon or Rio de la Plata, where foreign ships 
awaited the spoil and were ready to barter the coveted 
produce and manufactures of Europe in eschange. When 
these two viceroyalties were eventually subdivided, it was 
not into east and west, but north and south, and New 
Granada became the center of one; while the territories 
now included in the United States were separated from 
Mexico, and constituted the other. 

**ln Spain everybody, from the king in his palace to 
the peasant in his hut, regarded the colonies simply as 
a source of revenue and profit to himself, and when they 
ceased to be this, they wotdd be useless. The most strin« 
gent regulations were adopted, therefore, against trading 
or even communicating among themselves, or of engage 
ing in any industry, manufacturing or agricultural, which 
was not indigenous to the country; indeed, Spain insisted 
upon supplying everything it could grow or make which 
would stand the sea voyage, at its own price. The culti- 
vation of neither the olive nor the vine was permitted in 
the New World, and severe penalties were inflicted upon 
any one who had the temerity to disobey. Peru and Chili, 
however, were specially exempted, owing to their immense 
distance, and the damaged condition in which liquids gen- 
erally arrived there, but they were not allowed to export 
the produce to any neighboring country, and must con- 
sume it themselves. The duties of the colonists were, in 
fact, strictly limited to obtaining as much gold and silver 
as they could, while the Spaniards at home were to take 

10 



316 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

care that they retained as little of it as possible. For all 
that, many fortunes were realized, principally by bullion 
being smuggled out of the country; and had there not 
been some such inducement, few men would have cared 
to expatriate themselves, and live amid such uncomfor- 
table surroundings. 

** Precisely similar principles were observed in all mat- 
ters relating to government. Every office of profit under 
the crown, almost every emolument, however trivial, was 
reserved for persons of pure Spanish birth. As a conse- 
quence, the official class was migratory, and remained in 
the colonies no longer than was necessary to accumulate 
a fortune or a competence, according to the taste of each 
individual member of it. Though there were honest and 
honorable men to be found among them, notably those 
filling the most exalted positions, that did not prevent 
the vast majority from preying on the colonists, many 
of whom, by virtue of the grants of territory they had 
received, attained to great influence and wealth. Their 
descendants were, nevertheless, debarred from all partici- 
pation in either the legislative or executive functions of 
government, though they might have nothing but the 
purest Spanish blood flowing in their veins. Nor could 
they become dignitaries of the Church without much diffi- 
culty. In the days when the Holy See found it politic to 
be on good terms with the Spanish sovereign, the whole 
ecclesiastical patronage of the New World was vested in 
him and his successors; and though many Popes endeav- 
ored to get this privilege back into their own hands, they 
always failed, and were compelled to confirm the nomina- 
tions of the secular ruler. Both Mexico and Peru were 



COLONIAL SPAIN. 217 

rapidly overrun with clergy, secular as well as regular, 
and monastic establishments sprang up everywhere like 
mushrooms, yet preferment was always reserved for their 
brethren in Spain; and out of nearly four hundred bishops 
and archbishops consecrated up to the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, scarce a dozen were taken from the Span- 
ish-American community known as Creoles. 

*'A system so rigid is bound to break. Federation is 
all very well and may accomplish much that is beneficial 
to all concerned. But its first condition is elasticity, so 
that every section within its embrace may enjoy full free- 
dom of expansion. There must be no jealousies, no re- 
criminations, and, above everything, no attempts to get all 
and give nothing. These conditions are possible under an 
arrangement entered into freely by all parties; they are 
unattainable when imposed by the strong upon the weak. 
That is why Spain never won the gratitude of its colonies, 
why each and every one eagerly seized the opportunity of 
throwing off the yoke, and fought desperately for inde- 
pendence, and why, to-day, her colonial power is ended." 



CHAPTER X 

THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE 

THE SUPREMACY OF SPAIN— ENCROACHMENTS OF OTHER 
NATIONS— CAUSES WHICH LED TO COLONIAL REVOLT 
—BIRTH OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS— INSUR- 
RECTIONS IN CUBA— ROBAMOS TODOS 

The population of Hayti at the advent of Columbus 
was estimated to have been a million, yet, before many 
years had elapsed, the colonists were forcibly depopulat- 
ing the smaller islands to provide a supply of labor suffi- 
cient for their limited requirements. It was the people 
of the mainland who might have been expected and who 
actually did offer the stoutest resistance. No more won- 
derful campaign is recorded in military history than that 
conducted by Cortes against the Mexicans, and it may be 
doubted whether there was another man living who could 
have carried it to a successful issue. 

Conspicuous as a general, he was unmatched as a 
diplomatist, whether in dealing with his own soldiers, 
his allies, or his enemies. Who else in that age would 
have dreamed, after defeating the Tlascalans against 
fearful odds, of enlisting them against their deadly foes 
the Aztecs, and so humoring them that they never 
swerved in their loyalty? Or who could have traded on 
the superstition of Montezuma, so as to gain complete 
control over his mind, and extract his treasures, valued 
(218) 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE, 219 

at something like seven and a half million dollars, with* 
out a blow? But Montezomia once removed, the people^ 
who had long been accustomed to render him an unques- 
tioned obedience, and to submit themselves to his slightest 
command, were free to follow leaders who evinced more 
spirit; and the death of that monarch was speedily fol- 
lowed by the noche triste with all its attendant horrors. 
To be captured alive, as many of the Spanish soldiers 
were, meant the most terrible of all ends, for they were 
hurried away to the temples, and their palpitating hearts 
torn from their living bodies, to be offered as a propitia- 
tion to the national deities. Yet even this did not dis- 
concert Cortes and his brave adherents, who began im- 
mediately to concert another plan of campaign. The 
difficulties they had first encountered were as nothing 
compared to those they had still to face, for they had to 
deal with a victorious and determined foe, instead of a 
beaten and depressed one. Every obstacle, however, was 
overcome; and with the energetic assistance of allies, 
who little dreamed they were sealing their own doom 
and forever sacrificing their independence, the powerful 
and rich kingdom of Mexico was finally brought into 
complete subjection to the Castilian crown. 

Of totally different and vastly inferior fiber was the 
conqueror of Peru. Pizarro was without either education 
or address — a rough, ambitious, and avaricious soldier. 
He, too, was favored by internal dissensions, of which 
he could not possibly have known anything when he set 
forth on his errand. After a long period of peaceful and 
undisputed sway, the Inca dynasty was split by a feud 
between two brothers, one of whom, Atahualpa, had just 



»20 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

asserted his superiority by force of arms, when the Eu- 
ropean conquerors appeared on the scene. A word from 
him, and not a man of them would have escaped alive. 
But at the critical moment an unaccountable paralysis 
overtook him, whether or not arising from a curiosity to 
see and interview the strangers it is impossible to say. 
He realized his danger too late, for Pizarro, imitating 
Cortes, seized the person of the Inca, and the rest was 
rendered comparatively easy. Accustomed, like Monte- 
zuma, to exact unqualified obedience, he employed his 
subjects in collecting his ransom instead of fighting for 
his deliverance; and when the debt was almost paid, he 
found himself doomed to death instead of released from 
captivity. The forces of the empire were then scattered, 
and without a leader who could assume full authority. 
Still, many a desperate bid was subsequently made for 
freedom, but each time with less prospect of success, as 
the conquerors secured a firmer grip upon the country, 
until the execution of Tapac Amara, the last direct de- 
scendant of the Incas, in 1571, left that solitude which 
Caesar called peace. 

But after all it was not the opposition of the Indians, 
whether of the islands, of Mexico, or Peru, that proved 
the greatest danger to Spanish sovereignty. Enmity to 
Columbus, who was the accredited representative of the 
crown and legal governor of the Indies, did not neces- 
sarily infer enmity to the crown itself ; indeed, those who 
rebelled against him were loud in their protestations of 
loyalty. Nevertheless, the turbulent factions fought for 
their own hand, and would have been equally opposed to 
any other governor who sought to place the necessary 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE. 221 

restraint upon their license. By permitting, and even 
compelling, many of the discontented to return home, as 
well as by the temporary removal of Columbus himself, 
something like quiet was restored; but it is more than 
probable that had not the colonists been largely depend- 
ent upon Spain for many necessaries, not excluding food, 
they would have cut themselves adrift and refused to 
submit to the exactions upon their industry, or rather 
upon that of the natives from which they profited. More 
than once in the early days, the home government had 
to step cautiously, and commissions were dispatched to 
ascertain where the grievances lay, and if possible redress 
them. They were mostly connected with labor; the ma- 
jority of the clergy, to their credit be it said, ranging 
themselves on the side of humanity, and using all their 
influence to obtain ordinances favorable to the natives. 
This difficulty was smoothed away to a great extent by 
the introduction of the African negro, which began as 
early as the year 1503. 

The followers of Cortes were remarkably loyal to him 
in prosperity and adversity alike; and though for a long 
time he was unaware how his proceedings would be re- 
ceived at court, he remained consistent in his devotion to 
his sovereign. His dispatches breathe an almost effusive 
submission to their will and interests, and only his ene- 
mies ever laid any charges against him, while his own 
actions too obviously refuted them. It was only when 
some of his officers were removed from his influence and 
intrusted with commissions of their own that they thought 
of kicking over the traces, and then it invariably hap- 
pened that they were not in situations where any great 



222 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

harm could result. Mexico once subdued, long rendered 
the most willing obedience of any of the colonies, partly 
perhaps because under the direct influence of good and 
great viceroys, who acted both with intelligence and dis- 
cretion. 

It was far otherwise in Peru, where the duplicity of 
Pizarro in excluding Almagro from his proper share in 
the governorship roused the suspicion, then the ire, and 
finally the opposition of that honest and gallant soldier. 
When Pizarro returned from his visit to Spain, he was 
either accompanied or immediately followed by several of 
his brothers, who, among them, formed a family compact 
for the protection and promotion of their own interests. 
To rid themselves of the rivalry of Almagro, they ob- 
tained for him the governorship of the country which 
now comprises the Republic of ChilL This, however, 
had still to be conquered, and the obstacles which pre- 
sented themselves to the enterprise appeared so insur- 
moimtable that Almagro and his followers abandoned it 
and returned to Cuzco, the rich capital of Peru, which, 
the former maintained, fell within the latitude of the pa- 
tent granted to him. This assertion was naturally con- 
tested by the Pizarros, and in the civil war that followed 
both Francisco Pizarro, the eldest and foremost of the 
brothers, and Almagro met with violent deaths. The In- 
dians looked on with amazement at this strife between 
the white men, but failed to profit by it. Had they 
shown anything like the energy displayed in the warfare 
among themselves, or that of their Mexican brothers, they 
must inevitably have recaptured their kingdom, which it 
would have been extremely difficult to reconquer; but hav- 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE. 223 

ing allowed the golden opportunity to slip, it never again 
offered. 

But the most serious menace to the supremacy of Spain 
in the New "World occurred shortly after the promulga- 
tion of the edicts of Charles V. in 1542. The clauses guar- 
anteeing the Indians their freedom, and protecting them 
against undue imposition, either of taxation or forced 
labor, were so obnoxious to the colonists that something 
like a general rising was threatened. The tact of the 
Mexican viceroy pacified those under his rule, but Peru 
experienced the full force of an armed rebellion with all 
its evil consequences. The leader in this instance was 
Gonzales Pizarro, who had inherited the immense estates 
conferred upon the family by a grateful sovereign, and 
who now undoubtedly aimed at establishing a separate 
kingdom with himself its supreme head. Fortunately, 
the right man was again sent from Spain to deal effect- 
ively with this uprising, and though a cleric, Vaca de 
Castro exhibited the skill of a general and the diplomacy 
of a statesman. With the execution of Gonzales, the last 
of the Pizarro brothers, peace was restored; and by the 
middle of the sixteenth century the various governments 
were so effectively consolidated that not for upward of a 
hundred and fifty years did any revolt, Indian or Creole, 
meet with more than temporary success. 

It was far otherwise with the Philippines, which have 
never been free for any length of time from disturbances 
of some kind. No effort indeed has ever been made to 
thoroughly subdue the turbulent natives; and there is no 
similar extent of territory under the control of a European 
government, about which so little is known regarding its nat- 



824 H1S20RY Of SPAIN. 

ural resources and mineral wealth as the important islands 
of Luzon and Mindanao, which embrace half the total area 
of the archipelago. The principal ports have been strongly- 
fortified, and reliance placed upon them to retain posses- 
sion. The immunities enjoyed by the natives would, un- 
der ordinary circinnstances, offer little inducement to re- 
volt, but unfortunately the Philippines have from the very 
first been particularly subject to ecclesiastical influence 
and jurisdiction, and in its missionary and persecuting 
Eeal the priesthood has made itself thoroughly obnoxious. 
The religious orders were the special object of animosity 
in the latest rising, and unless they are either suppressed 
or placed under more effective political control, there will 
be little prospect of peace in the islands. 

In an epoch when most of the nations of Europe are 
struggling to add to their territories in the remotest cor- 
ners of the earth, it seems almost incredible that four 
centuries ago a single one of them should have been per- 
mitted to annex a whole continent unchallenged. It was 
not so much the Pope's Bull that frightened competitors 
away as the fact that they were too deeply absorbed in 
their own affairs. The importunity of CJolumbus had to 
wear itself nearly out before the fortunate completion oi 
the Moorish conquest won it a more ready ear; and most 
other countries were about the same time either engaged 
in, or just recovering from, some similar internecine strife. 
Moreover, it was the energy of private adventurers rather 
than of the Spanish crown which won for the latter a vast 
empire beyond the seas; nor was it until its value became 
plainly apparent that it was thought worth while to go to 
any great amoimt of trouble or expense in its development 



THE FALL OF AJ^ EMPIRE, 226 

Similarly, the first external enemies the Spanish colo- 
nies had to encounter were private and unattached advent- 
urers. Piracy was an institution which had already flour- 
ished for many centuries. The Barbary corsairs were far 
more feared by the merchants of Venice and Genoa than 
the fiercest storms that ever visited the Mediterranean; 
and they had their counterpart in the Baltic, where the 
Hanseatic League carried on so extensive a commerce. 
It was only to be expected that they would sally forth 
from their inland seas when so much more valuable spoil 
was to be secured on the open ocean beyond, but strange 
to say, with the rapid decline of the trade which they had 
so long harried, their activity slackened, and their prin- 
ciples and profession were largely inherited by more civil- 
ized races. Some excuse was offered for this by the al- 
most constant warfare that prevailed during the reign of 
Charles V., when France and Spain were at perpetual 
enmity, and England was found, first on one side, then 
on the other. The first important loss that befell Spain 
was the capture of the vessel conveying home the royal 
share of the treasures of Mexico by a French privateer, 
or pirate, as the Spaniards always preferred to call the 
ships which despoiled their fleets, a designation that was 
more often than not amply justifled. 

To begin with, these pirate ships were content to hang 
about the Azores, on the chance of meeting a caravel laden 
with treasure homeward bound. They gradually ventured 
further west, until they actually arrived among the West 
Indian Islands, where they were surprised to find that 
altogether undreamed-of facilities awaited them for the 
pursuit of their nefarious trade. Though the entire archi- 



226 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

pelago belonged nominally to Spain, only the larger isl- 
ands were actually occupied, the smaller not being re- 
garded as worthy of attention, until the Indian population 
of Hispaniola, Cuba and Porto Rico began to fail, and 
then they were raided for their inhabitants to supply the 
vacant places. With a scanty Spanish population, it would 
have been utterly impossible to fortify and inhabit all, even 
had colonists been found so self-denying as to banish them- 
selves to places where the only chance of accumulating 
wealth was by hard work and steady application to agri- 
cultural pursuits. 

For a long time these scattered islands were merely 
places of call, where fresh water and fruit could be ob- 
tained. 'No attempt was made at annexation in the name 
of any foreign power, and it would have been folly for 
any ship's company, even had they been disposed to re- 
linquish their buccaneering career, to settle down and defy 
the Spanish power, whose forces would quickly have been 
put in motion to expel them. 

Two events, designed by Philip II. to aggrandise the 
power of Spain at the expense of its neighbors, were event- 
ually the means of arousing enmity against it to such an 
extent that the opposition of private adventurers was sud- 
denly backed up by the full weight of the most rapidly 
progressing peoples and governments in the Old World. 

Many previous efforts had been made to tmite the 
crowns of Spain and Portugal, but hitherto all had failed. 
The heroic death of Sebastian, however, in 1580, left the 
throne of Portugal without a direct heir, and among the 
numerous claimants was Philip, who overreached all his 
competitors. He was probably even then meditating that 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRR 227 

descent upon the liberties of England which reeiilted, eight 
years later, in the dispatch of the renowned Armada^ 
and the writing of one of the most bnOiant p^es of En* 
glish history. Sucoess in the one instance, no less than 
failure in the other, created the most deadly foes that 
Spain ever had to encounter, until the persistent antag> 
onism of Holland and Ekigland reduced it at last to a 
miserable shadow of its former self. 

Philip's ruling passion was an intense bigotry, and 
from the moment he assmned sway in Spain and the 
Low Countries, he sought to exterminate every trace of 
the Reformed faith. That brought him into conflict with 
the Dutch, whose principal port and city of Amsterdam 
was fast concentrating within itself the trade that ^uges 
and Antwerp had once commanded as the principal marts 
of the Hanseatio League. J^ Portnga] extended its con- 
quests in the East, Lisbon displaced Yenke and Qenoa, 
and became the great emporitmi of all Elastem produce, 
whence Amsterdam drew its supplies for distributiosi 
throughout northern Europe. With the object, therefore, 
of destroying Dutch trade, Philip closed the port of Lis* 
bon to it in 1594, fondly imagining that that would ruin 
his rebellious subjects, and enforce submission to his will. 

He had entirely mistaken Dutch character, however; 
for in the following year the services were enlisted <^ 
Cornelius Hautmann, who had been a pilot in the Portu* 
guese service; and he conducted the first Dutch expedition 
round the Cape of Good Hope on its way to open up a 
direct trade with the Spice Islands and India, which of 
course had become the property of Spain along with its 
own Philippines. Thus modestly was laid the foimdation 



1828 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

of the Dutch Empire in the East Indies, and when Portu- 
gal regained its freedom in 1640, under the House of 
Braganza, it found itself stripped of most of its former 
colonies, which were never to be restored. 

Not content merely with retaining their former trade, 
the Dutch sought to extend it in other directions ; and the 
incorporation of their East India Company in 1602 was 
followed by that of the West India Company in 1621, the 
operations of which were to embrace the west coast of 
Africa as well as the whole of Spanish America, in which 
the Brazils had then to be included. They had been pre- 
ceded many years earlier by the English, who commenced 
operations in good earnest some time before the date of 
the Armada; indeed, those two great figures in English 
naval history, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake, 
had then already performed their greatest exploits. As 
early as 1672, the latter gave a good account of himself 
on the Spanish Main, but his most daring feat was accom- 
plished in 1678, when he sailed through the Straits of 
Magellan and appeared off the coast of Peru. Francisco 
Draques was the terror of Spanish America, and his was 
the name used to frighten Spanish- American children 
when they were naughty. 

A new danger thus became apparent, as the Spaniards 
had never dreamed before of reaching their West Coast 
possessions by the southern route. Lest other foreign ad- 
venturers should follow in the wake, an expedition under 
Pedro Sarmiento was dispatched from Chili to explore 
the Straits and the adjoining territory, with the view, if 
practicable, of founding a strong colony and erecting sub- 
stantial fortifications. Sarmiento's zeal outran his discre- 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE. 229 

tion, and after accomplishing his task he sailed for Spain, 
where he gave an exaggerated acoonnt, not only of the 
danger of leaving the Straits unprotected, but of the ease 
with which they could be rendered impregnable to all un- 
friendly visitors. A colony consisting of about four hun- 
dred souls was actually sent out in 1682, though from the 
very first it met with nothing but dire misfortune. 

The captain-general commissioned to take charge of 
the undertaking, Diego Flores, disliked the job, and began 
by chartering the worst ships he could find. His lieuten- 
ant, Sarmiento, was more discreet in the choice of the em- 
bryo colonists, most of whom were skilled mechanics; but 
the fleet had scarcely left Ban Lucar on the outward voy- 
age, when half of them were shipwrecked and drowned. 
Though replaced, disaster continued to follow upon dis- 
aster, the voyage being very much a repetition of the pre- 
vious one made by Magellan, only in this instance the 
commander was himself the leading obstructionist. Event- 
ually, rather more than two hundred souls sailed &om 
the Rio de la Plata, and forty-five of these were drowned 
ere the Straits were reached. All but eight of the sur« 
vivors subsequently perished, and the last of them was 
taken off in 1689 by the "Delight," commanded by Sip 
John Cavendish, who appropriately named the spot where 
he found him "Port Famine." 

The advent of the English and Dutch, followed half a 
century later by the French, led to the settlement of some 
of the unoccupied islands. They rapidly became some- 
thing more than mere provisioning depots, though several 
of them, and notably the island of Tortuga, were nothing 
else than the lairs of desperate crews of pirates, as reck- 



230 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

less of their own lives as of those who were unfortunate 
enough to fall into their clutches. But Barbadoes and St. 
Christopher, St. Eustatius and Curagoa, Martinique and 
Guadalupe, became the center of something more legiti- 
mate, if quite as illegal, as sinking galleons and purloin- 
ing their treasure, though that business was never missed 
either when the opportunity presented itself; and the 
Dutch West India Company alone is said to have been 
responsible for the capture of between five and six hun- 
dred Spanish vessels. 

The English secured their first foothold in the neigh- 
borhood by occupying the Bermudas in 1621, though this 
hardly brought them into direct contact with the West 
Indies. This was speedily followed by settlements in some 
of the unoccupied islands further south. Barbadoes was 
taken possession of in 1625, and the same year St. Christo- 
pher, or St. Kitts, as it is now called, was divided between 
the English and French. The former continued to add to 
their territory, taking Nevis in 1628, Antigua and Mont- 
serrat in 1632; and all these islands are so essentially 
English, as to prove conclusively that, although once 
nominally owned by Spain, Spanish influence was never 
exerted in them. 

From 1650 until the period of his death, Oliver Crom- 
well, having established his authority at home, pursued 
an active foreign policy, and it was only natural that he 
should find himself in conflict with Spain, whose maxims 
of government, both civil and religious, were so utterly at 
variance with his. Thus, in 1654, a somewhat formidable 
fleet, under the command of the admirals Penn and Vena- 
bles, sailed for Barbadoes, where they would be ready for 



THE FALL OF Al^ EMPIRE, %9ii 

any emergency. Early the following year they made a 
descent upon Hispaniola, selecting the capital, San Do- 
mingo, as the object of attack. On the approach of the 
ships, the inhabitants, white and black alike, fled inland, 
but the affair was sadly mismanaged and somehow mis- 
carried. Not wishing the expedition to prove a complete 
failure, the admirals set sail for the adjoining island <^ 
Jamaica, which did not then contain, at the outside, more 
than fifteen hundred whites, and perhaps as many blacks. 
This time, no difficulty was experienced, and the island 
was taken formal possession of, this being the first loss of 
occupied territory inflicted upon Spain, as well as the most 
important acquisition ever made in the West Indies by 
England. In 1658 the Spaniards attempted to drive the 
intruders out but failed, and in 1670 a treaty was entered 
into between the two countries, in which Spain recognized 
the rights of England l)oth in Jamaiea and the smaller 
islands of which possession had been previously taken. 

About this time, also, the French West India Companjr 
was incorporated, the brilHant finance minister of Louia 
XIY., Colbert, not liking to be without a hand in the 
game. He began in a more legitimate fashion than hia 
competitors, and in 1664 purchased the rights of the set- 
tlers in Martinique, Guadalupe, St. Lucia, Grenada, and 
a few other islands for about a million Hvres. Spanish 
tyranny, however, afforded an excuse for more high- 
handed proceedings, and the company secured a footing 
on the western side of Hispaniola, Spanish interests being 
concentrated almost entirely on the eastern. The settle* 
ments so established became little more than a rallying- 
point and shelter for buccaneers, who, in consequence of 



232 HISTORY OF SPAIK 

their roving habits, were difficult to eject, until eventualljr 
this intermittent occupation of a portion of the island in- 
duced France to lay claim to the whole, but the cession 
was only formally recognized by Spain more than a cent- 
ury later. Thus the four predominant powers of Europe 
all had a stake in the Western Hemisphere. 

Nearly a hundred and fifty years elapsed without wit- 
nessing any further important changes. The very vast- 
ness of the Spanish- American empire was its principal 
protection. Europe was growing thoroughly accustomed 
to immense armies, but they could only be moved on land, 
and there was no means for transporting them across the 
sea. What chance was there then of conquering a terri- 
tory which extended uninterruptedly from California to 
Chili, and from Florida to the Rio de la Plata, even had 
there been much inclination? The idea, it is true, oc- 
curred more than once, and especially in 1703, when — the 
death of Charles II. of Spain having brought to an end 
the Hapsburg dynasty, and the Wars of the Spanish Suc- 
cession being entered upon — an alliance was formed be- 
tween England, Holland and the German Empire for the 
conquest of the Spanish colonies, but like others it came 
to nothing. Again, in 1739, Spain, alarmed at the grow- 
ing contraband trade, insisted very justifiably on searching 
English ships in American waters, but this was resented 
and led to war, in which Porto Bello was captured; and 
that had something to do with the permission granted a 
few years later to trade by the longer, but safer and more 
convenient route round Cape Horn. 

Once more, in 1762, what was known as the Family 
Compact involved the rest of Europe in hostilities against 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE. 233 

the Bourbon dynasties in Prance, Spain, and Italy, and 
the war was carried both to the East and West Indies. 
Havana and Manila were captured by the English, and 
might have become English possessions, had not the Treaty 
of Paris, concluded in 1763, brought the campaign to an 
end, and made it a condition that all colonial conquests 
were to be restored to their original owners. Minor changes 
were frequent and numerous, but they were generally a 
mere shuffling of the cards between England, Holland, 
and France, leaving the Spanish possessions much as 
they were. 

The eighteenth century, as it drew to its close, found 
the Spanish occupation of America almost as it had been 
in the first half of the seventeenth. Then a mighty up- 
heaval was witnessed both in North America and Europe, 
and the War of Independence in the United States, to- 
gether with the French Revolution, provide the sequel 
for what followed in South America. Scarcely a mur- 
mur was heard in the principal Spanish colonies while 
these great events were changing the destinies of the 
civilized world, and an onlooker who had time to think 
must have been astonished at their apparent loyalty to 
the mother country, oppressed though they had been, and 
still were, while everywhere else the blow for freedom 
was being struck. Perhaps another conclusion might 
have been arrived at; namely, that the ancient Spanish 
stock had so degenerated, and had become such a mean- 
spirited race, that it dare not act like its neighbors further 
north; but subsequent events disproved this hypothesis. 
The Girondists and the Mountain rose and fell; Napoleon 
hecame successively director, dictator, emperor -— still no 



284 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

sign of movement. Then the moment arrived for the 
arch-disturber of Europe to overthrow the ancient mon- 
archy of Spain, and to establish a brand-new one with his 
brother Joseph at its head. That was the supreme crisis 
to make a move, or forever to remain still. Spain almost 
to a man resented the affront. Spanish America joined 
the mother country, and refused to recognize the upstart 
dynasty. 

Still, in the midst of this death-like calm, some pres- 
ages of the coming storm were discernible. In the first 
place, France, by the Treaty of Basle in 1795, secured the 
cession of the whole of Hispaniola, only, however, in a 
few years to lose it again by its declaration of independ- 
ence, and the formation of a black republic. In the naval 
conflicts so frequent during that disturbed period England 
both lost and gained. The Dutch and Spanish were both 
unwilling confederates of Napoleon, but their connection 
with him, nevertheless, exposed their foreign possessions to 
the attack of his declared enemies; and England captured 
Bemerara and Essequibo in Guiana from the former, and 
the island of Trinidad from the latter. All these wexe 
trivial acquisitions, compared with the vast extent oi Mex- 
ico and Central America, Peru, and New Granada, and 
the eastern province of Buenos Ayres. Brazdl had re* 
verted to Portugal with the firm establishment oi the 
Braganza dynasty, and was nearly all there was left of 
its once great colonial empire. In March, 1808, the ill 
fortune of the royal family drove them trom their own 
kingdom to find refuge beyond the seas, and Brazil be- 
came an independent empire under the fugitive Portu- 
guese sovereign, whose descendants remained in peaceable 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE. 235 

and prosperous possession until the revolution which de- 
throned the late ill-fated Dom Pedro. 

These changes were due entirely to foreign interven- 
tion and not to domestic unrest. The first sign of this 
was when Francisco Miranda, a Spanish- American who 
had fought under Washington, conceived the idea of free- 
ing his fellow-countrymen, and took steps toward that 
end by founding a ''Gran Reunion Americana" in London 
in 1806. But so unresponsive were the inhabitants of the 
Spanish Main that the first active movement of the league 
resulted in dead failure. It attracted the sympathy and 
support, however, of two active and capable men, Bolivar 
and San Martin, who were destined to do so much for the 
emancipation of South America from European bondage, 
and whose advent brought a rapid change in the feeling 
of indifference with which the movement was regarded. 

Still, the loyalty of the colonists might have been proof 
against their blandishments had the government of Fer- 
dinand VII., established at Cadiz in opposition to that of 
Joseph Bonaparte, shown itself in any way conciliatory 
toward them. Loyal though the Spaniards at home were 
to the Bourbon dynasty, they were only willing to rally 
round it on condition of the carrying out of many impor- 
tant reforms in consonance with the spirit of the age; and 
the colonists likewise demanded that, as the price of their 
adhesion, they should be put upon an equality with Spain, 
and be accorded perfect liberty in their agricultural and 
manufacturing industries; that trade should be thrown 
open between all the countries on the American Continent 
and with the Philippines; and that all restrictions and 
monopolies should be abolished, and fixed duties substi- 



236 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

tuted in their place. Reasonable though these demands 
now appear, they were indignantly rejected, and with one 
consent nearly every country in Spanish America was 
ablaze with revolution. 

One of the earliest outbreaks was in Mexico, the near 
proximity of the United States having perhaps inspired in 
that country a more intense longing for freedom than else- 
where. A small band of patriots had for some time been 
watching an opportunity for asserting themselves, and 
with Hidalgo and Allende at their head, took the ex- 
treme step of issuing a declaration of independence on 
the 16th of September, 1810. Spanish influence was still 
strong, and in less than a year the outbreak was sup- 
pressed, and the leaders executed. Others rose to tak© 
their places, and just three years after the declaration oi 
independence, the first Mexican Congress was summoned 
to meet at the town of Chilpantzongo, which was in the 
hands of the insurgents. Morelos, the principal actor at 
this stage of the drama, was captured and shot in Decem- 
ber, 1816; but that only imposed a temporary check <m, 
the movement. In the delusive hope of regaining full 
control, Ferdinand, then firmly re-established on his throne, 
offered concessions in 1830, but it was too late, and they 
failed to effect a pacification. Independence was onoe 
more declared in 1821, but this time at the instigation c^ 
a dictator who aimed at fomiding an empire for himself, 
and who did for a short period sway the destinies of his 
country as the Emperor Iturbide I. His reign was brie^ 
and a republic was definitely established on the 16th of De 
cember, 1823, the subsequent career of which has been so 
checkered witil quite recent times. Having been recog- 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE, 237 

nized by the principal courts of Europe, Spain itself ac- 
credited an embassador in 1839, and made no further 
efforts to reassert its former title. 

Elsewhere the struggle was less prolonged, though, 
while it lasted, quite as exciting. At the instigation of 
Bolivar, Venezuela proclaimed its independence in July, 
1811, and several years later united with New Granada 
as the Republic of Colombia. Buenos Ayres established 
a junta in 1810, a Constituent Assembly was called in Jan- 
nary, 1813, and entire independence of Spain was declared, 
July, 1816. The insurrection in Chili likewise began in 
1810, when a National Congress was summoned to meet 
at Santiago; but the Spanish interest was strong on the 
west coast, . and it was not until San Martin crossed the 
Andes from La Plata in 1817 that independence was made 
good. Material assistance was afforded by the famous 
Admiral Cochrane (Lord Dundonald), who, driven in dis- 
grace from his native country, placed his services at the 
disposal of the revolting Chilians, and gave them that 
aaaval pre-eminence in South America which they have 
ever since retained. 

Peru proved an even tougher job, but the combined 
forces of San Martin and Cochrane proved irresistible, and 
both Lima and Callao were taken in 1821. Lima, how- 
ever, was recaptured by the Spaniards in 1823, but Boli- 
var, marching against it from Colombia, was appointed 
dictator, and gained so decisive a victory in 1824 that the 
Spanish army was forced to capitidate, and by 1828 the 
connection with the mother country was completely and 
finally severed. Spain had vainly striven against these 
saccessive misfortunes, and in 1815 sent out a consideiv 



238 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

able force under Marshal Morillo, who gained a few tern* 
porary successes; but his cruelties and atrocious conduct 
only exasperated the colonists, and instigated them to 
greater exertions. The various countries of Central Amer- 
ica were quietly federated into the Republic of Guatemala 
in 1823, in the absence of any Spanish troops to oppose; 
and thus, from the northern borders of Mexico to the 
southern confines of Chili and La Plata, the conquerors 
of the New World were forever ejected. England was 
the first to recognize the South American republics, and 
entered into commercial treaties with several of them in 
1825, after which date Spain can no longer be said to 
have been able to claim ownership of a single acre on the 
American Continent. 

Meanwhile <^ a once vast odkmial empire but Cuba 
and Porto Bico remained. What were the fcmses at work 
which there prevented secesskm? 

The political economist Mr. B. J. Boot» to whom and to 
whose work aa llils sabjeot we are already mudi indebted, 
states that the oonditioiis were different. The pred(»ni* 
nant feature of the islands was negco slavery, whereas 
the wealth <^ the Spanish* American colonist lay in lands 
which, if subject to alieoatioay were at least impossible of 
removal. The Onbaa planter reekoiied as his most pre* 
dous possession the flesh and blood attadied to his estates^ 
and the very words **freed<nn" and ^^independence" stank 
in his nostrils. Whatever inc(mv^enoe, therefore, he suf- 
fered from his political oonneotion with an effete maoi' 
arohy and a decaying or decayed empre, he at least felt 
that, while he dung to it, it would afford him protecdon 
for his property. 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRB 289 

A steady flood of immigration from the mother ooun* 
try maintained this connection down to the recent war. 
The wealthiest merchants and planters have invariably 
been of pure Spanish blood, and their contempt for the 
Cuban Creoles, though many of them are as pure-blooded 
as themselves, and have no taint whatever of the •*tar- 
brush," has helped to maintain them as a separate class, 
regarded as intruders by all of Cuban birth, and bated 
accordingly. They have of necessity invoked Spanish aid 
and relied on Spanish authority, and have, for nearly a 
hundred years, provided the basis for Spanish rule in the 
island. Many of them made their fortimes and returned 
home, leaving room for others to follow. Some made 
Cuba their permanent domicile, but invariably with fata] 
effects upon their offspring, for Cuban birth is almosfc 
synonymous with Cuban sympathies, and, in any rising, 
the father, who has been on the side of the crown, has 
witnessed his sons throwing in their lot with the rebels. 

Ever since the emancipation of the Spanish Main, Cuba 
has been in a state of political unrest. Yarions secret so* 
cieties have been constituted, and have received advice 
and assistance from Mexicans, Chilians, and oth^» who 
had already succeeded in throwing oE their own fetters. 
In 1823 the Society of Soles struck a blow for liberfy; six 
years later it was the Company of the Black ESagle which 
attempted success wnere its predecessor had failed. Both 
were essentially Creole risings, and although those who 
participated in them freely gave expression to their a1> 
horrence of slavery, no assistance was either asked or 
received from the negroes. For these unfortimates, how- 
ever, failure meant the tightening of their bonds; and xl 

II 



240 BISIORY OF SPAIN. 

IB not surprising to find that, in 1844, goaded to despair 
by their sufferings, they tried an insurrection on their own 
account, though of course it ended disastrously. 

These outbreaks were all more or less localized, and it 
was not until 1868 that a revolution broke out, destined 
to involve the entire island, and to occupy long and weary 
years in suppressing, if, indeed, the smoking embers can 
be said ever to have been quenched. It was undoubtedly 
instigated by the American Civil War, which had ended 
in the uncompromising abolition of slavery, and so raised 
the hopes of the friends of liberty in Cuba. Though the 
planters and slave-owners ranged themselves, as was nat- 
tiral, on the side of law and order, their enthusiasm was 
no longer of the keenest. They realized that the institu- 
tion to which they clung so tenaciously was doomed, and 
it became a question with them of doing the best they 
could for themselves. Emancipation in the British West 
Indies had for a time added enormously to their prosper- 
ity, imtil the value oi slaves underwent so great an ap- 
preciation that it no longer became profitable to purchase 
them, and only actual owners^ derived any benefit. For, 
it mtist be remembered, there was a distinct difference be- 
tween the slave-trade and slavery, and long after public 
opinion revolted against, and prohibited the kidnaping 
and traffic in human flesh, it continued to tolerate its 
ownership, and recognized natural increase as legitimate 
property. That African negroes were smuggled into Cuba 
is tolerably certain; nevertheless, the numbers were too 
email to prevent the gradual increase in value of an able- 
bodied male slave from $250 to something like $1,760 or 
$2,000. This was the surest means of eventual aboUtioii; 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE. 241 

for while this high price set upon the black made him 
valuable property, and insured his better treatment, it 
tended to make the luxury too costly, and one that could 
eventually no longer be indulged in, as the point must be 
reached where free labor would become cheaper. 

About the time of the rebellion, the number of slaves 
in Cuba was between 350,000 and 400,000, and their value 
on paper was simply enormous. The $100,000,000 voted 
by the British Parliament as compensation to the disin* 
herited slave-owners in the British West Indies would 
have been but a drop in the ocean in any scheme for 
Cuban emancipation by purchase. Indeed, to do the 
planters justice, they never expected anything of the sort, 
and all the more practical of them asked, was to be let 
down gently. This was effected by the proclamation of 
what was known as the Moret Law in 1870, which at 
once declared free all slaves over sixty years of age, and 
decreed that every child bom after that year should be 
free likewise. In the first instance, the planters registered 
a distinct gain, as they got rid of a number of old and de» 
crepit dependents no longer fit for work; but this was off- 
set by the compulsory maintenance, until their eighteentii 
year, of all the free offspring of their slaves. Under th» 
law, the odious institution perished in something like 
twenty years, because its burdens gradually outweighed 
its benefits, until the low wage for which the free negio 
is wiUing to work became the more economical method ci 
production. 

Thus the strongest tie between Spain and Cuba was 
snapped, and the party of independence gained iaroe^ as 
many planters foimd no longer any advantage in support* 



242 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

ing the authority of the crown. The rebellion dragged 
on; the Spanish troops continually poured in having to 
encounter the guerrilla warfare, for which the division 
of the island afforded so many opportunities. For, con- 
siderable though the population is, two-thirds of it has 
always been concentrated in the western corner, of which 
Havana is the capital, the remaining districts being very 
sparsely peopled. It is in these rebellion always throve; 
and the poUcy adopted by General Welyer, when in su- 
preme command, was to make them a desert by destroy- 
ing all sustenance, and forcibly removing the inhabitants, 
who, under the name of Reconcentrados, aroused so much 
sympathy. 

Though the outbreak of 1868 was eventually suppressed, 
it left a legacy of bitter memories and still bitterer ex- 
actions. For, true to its policy of four centuries, Spain 
determined that it at least would not be a loser, and sad- 
dled the entire cost of the military operations, and nobody 
knows what else besides, on the unfortunate island, in the 
form of a debt amounting to about four hundred million 
dollars. Even this might have been tolerated had any 
attempt been made to establish an equitable system of 
government, because an era of prosperity set in which 
culminated in 1891, when the total exports were valued at 
no less than $100,000,000, and there was ample margin for 
interest on an inflated debt. But the rapacity of Catalan 
manufacturers, no less than of government officials, upset 
everything; and from the captain-general down to the 
humblest trader in Barcelona, all expected to pocket some- 
thing out of the spoils of Cuba. Nor was the plunder lim- 
ited to Spaniards. Despite the restrictions against trading 



THE FALL OF AN EMPIRE. «43 

by foreigners, adventurers of all nationalities managed to 
get a foothold in Havana, and corruption preyed <m cor- 
ruption. No one, in fact, was expected to be honest, and 
a stranger remarking upon the rascality prevailing in high 
places, would as likely as not be met with a shmg of the 
shoulders and the r^ly, BobamoB todos, **We are all 
thievee.*' 



CHAPTER XI 

THE PHILIPPINES 

THE FIRST JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD — FERDINAND 
MAGELLAN — THE MOLUCCAS — THE ISLANDS OF THE 
PAINTED FACES— MANILA AND THE CHINESE — THE 
BRITISH INVASION — SPANISH RULE 

While Spain was actively engaged in exploration and 
annexation in the west, Portugal was equally busy in the 
east. Though the Cape of Good Hope had been doubled 
by Diaz in 1486, it was not until 1497, five years after the 
discovery of America, that Vasco da Gama proved the pos- 
sibiUty of reaching India by that route. Rapid progress, 
for those days at any rate, was made from that time. The 
actual neighborhood of the Cape apparently offered no at- 
tractions; the advantages of its situation were left to be 
realized by the Dutch a century later; and it was not until 
Natal was reached on Christmas day, whence its name, 
that there were any thoughts of annexation or settlement. 
It was the East Coast of Africa which seemed to offer the 
greatest facilities for communication and trading with the 
opposite shores of India, and claimed attention accord- 
ingly; and as numerous pilots were to be found there, 
skilled in navigating vessels across the Indian Ocean, it 
was there colonies were first established, one of which at 
least, and the only important one remaining to Portugal, 
Lorenzo Marques, has been the object of envy, and the 

source of much contention in recent years. 
(244) 



THE PHILIPPINES 245 

From the Malabar coast in the south to Karachi in the 
north of India, Portuguese traders grew active, but, owing 
to the fierceness and determination of the natives, it was 
found impossible for some years to permanently occupy 
any territory, until Goa was established in 1510, as the 
center of Portuguese interests. A year earlier than this, 
Malacca had been subjugated, and the exploration of 
Sumatra undertaken; while three years later, Francisco 
Serrao discovered the Moluccas, the far-famed islands from 
which Venice and Genoa had so long drawn their stores of 
valuable spices by the overland route through India and 
Persia, or by the Red Sea and Isthmus of Suez. To divert 
this traffic round the Cape of Good Hope, expeditions were 
fitted out against Muscat and Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, 
and Aden at the entrance to the Red Sea. While, then, 
the Spanish colonists were searching for gold in sufficient 
quantities to make the enterprise pay, much less realize 
fortunes, the Portuguese tapped the source of wealth of 
the great mercantile communities of the Middle Ages, and, 
monopolizing it themselves, rendered their country for a 
time the richest in the world. 

Of the numerous governors dispatched by Portugal to 
the east, the Duke of Albuquerque was the most active, 
and accomplished the greatest results. Serving under him 
in various capaicities was Ferrao Magalhaes, or Maghal- 
lanes, a young nobleman who sought on every possible 
occasion to distinguish himself. Returning home, he did 
not receive the reward he considered his due; and though 
he continued to agitate at court, and to urge his claims, on 
the further ground that since his arrival from the east he 
had taken part in an African campaign and been perma- 



246 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

nently lamed, he was either repulsed or put off with some 
trifling concession. This rankling in his mind, he deter- 
mined to divest himself of his nationality, and offer his 
services to Spain, the patron of all foreign adventurers. 

By the Papal Bull, Spain was debarred from under- 
taking any enterprise in the East. This was, of course, 
well known to Magalhaes, or Ferdinand Magellan, as he 
now chose to call himself, but he had carefully thought 
the matter out, and arrived at a conclusion of his own. 
He had heard much of the ideas which led to the dis- 
covery of America, and though other and more important 
matters then engaged the attention of Spain than the dis- 
covery of Japan and China by the western route, he still 
considered the plan feasible. He intimated to the Emperor 
Charles V., then king of Spain, his desire to be intrusted 
with an expedition, with which he would undertake to 
reach the Moluccas from the west, and so prove that 
they belonged by right to Spain. 

News of this treachery reached Portugal, where it was 
heard with the greatest indignation, and an angry corre- 
spondence passed between the two courts. Charles's ambi- 
tions, however, lay in European aggrandizement, for which 
the demands upon his exchequer were heavier than he well 
knew how to meet. His great possessions in the New 
World had hitherto been a drain upon his scanty re- 
sources, as they had been upon those of his grandfather 
before him; and although Ferdinand lived for a quarter 
of a century after the discovery of America, he left hardly 
sufficient money in his coffers to pay his funeral expenses. 
Charles, therefore, listened eagerly to the proposition by 
which he might acquire the teeming riches of the Spice 



I 



THE PHILIPPINES 247 

Islands, and, notwithstanding protests and warnings alike, 
terms were finally agreed to in March, 1518, which placed 
five ships, and a full complement of men, at the disposal 
of Magellan. Failing any other means of putting an end 
to the enterprise, a plot was formed for the assassination 
of Magellan, but miscarried; and he weighed anchor on 
the 10th of August, 1519, though delayed in his actual 
departure until the 20th of September following. 

Instructions were sent to the Brazils, already occupied 
by Portugal, to waylay Magellan, and at all costs pre- 
vent the continuance of his voyage ; and in case he eluded 
the vigilance of the governor of that settlement, a strict 
watch was to be kept at the Moluccas, and no quarter 
given him if he ever reached there, as he was declared 
a traitor to the crown of Portugal. He arrived at the 
Rio de la Plata unmolested, and entered that river, of 
great width at its mouth and for some distance along its 
course, with the idea that it offered the long-sought 
passage to the West. The increasing freshness of the 
water convinced him that it was but a river, and he re- 
turned and moved his course southward. And now his 
real difficulties began. Winter was setting in with all its 
rigor, and the further south he proceeded the more severe 
became the weather. His crew was most cosmopolitan 
in character and nationality, and included a number of 
Portuguese, some of whom, it began to be suspected, had 
been bribed to mutiny, if not indeed to murder their com- 
mander. Dissensions broke out among the captains of the 
different vessels on petty points of precedence and disci- 
pline; and only the most determined stand by Magellan 
himself, who did not hesitate to hang several of the crew 



JW8 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

« 

as an example to the rest, prevented the total ruin of his 
hopes and plans. 

To make matters worse, scarcity of provisions began 
to be experienced, and it was then decided to winter in 
the shelter of the river St. Julian. It was in October, 
1520, before a fresh start could be made, and on the 21st 
of that month a channel was discovered, the careful navi- 
gation of which for thirty-eight days, amid shoals and 
innumerable islands, brought them, amid great rejoicing, 
once more into the open sea, proving the theory main- 
tained by Columbus to his dying day to be so far, at any 
rate, correct. 

But Magellan, like all his predecessors, sadly miscal- 
culated the distance between the remote East and the far 
West, and after taking in such supplies of provisions as 
were obtainable, renewed his voyage with a light heart, 
and in full expectation of reaching land in a week or two 
at longest. Days grew into weeks, and the weeks passed 
into months, and still no break on the monotonous hori- 
zon. The sufferings of the crew were horrible, as food 
and water became gradually exhausted, and they had to 
subsist at last by gnawing anything into which they could 
get their teeth. To turn back was certain destruction, 
as they could not possibly last out the time necessary to 
cover the distance already traversed. To go forward, 
therefore, was their only chance of salvation; and after 
a passage of ninety-eight days land was sighted on March 
18, and the most dreaded of their dangers passed. They 
had sailed into a group of islands, not the Moluccas as 
they had anticipated, but the Islas de las Pintados; so 
called from the custom of the natives of painting or tat- 



THE PHILIPPINES. 219 

tooing their naked bodies, and subsequently re-christened 
the Philippines, in honor of the heir to the Spanish throne, 
who afterward reigned as Philip II. 

Magellan was not destined to reap the fruits of his 
enterprise, nor to sujffer the punishment subsequently in- 
flicted on some of the survivors. He found the natives 
among whom he first landed friendly disposed, but rightly 
suspected them of treachery. Desirous, however, of con- 
ciliating them as far as possible, he entered into their 
quarrel with a tribe in a neighboring island, and, in the 
attack which he led against it, was slain. 

Disputes arose as to who should succeed to the com- 
mand; and what was left of the fleet, after many adven- 
tures and the loss of a considerable number of the crew, 
arrived at the island of Tidor in the Moluccas on the 8th 
6f November, 1521. There it was decided that the "Vic- 
toria" should load a cargo of spices and make its way 
to Spain by the Cape of Good Hope, in direct defiance 
of the rights of the Portuguese, while the ** Trinidad'* 
should return the way she came. A valuable cargo, con- 
sisting of about twenty-six tons of cloves, with parcels 
of cinnamon, sandal wood, and nutmegs, was shipped, 
and after being nearly captured by the Portuguese off 
the African coast, and again at the Canaries, arrived in 
the harbor of San Lucar, as was supposed, on the 6th of 
September, 1522, having sailed round the world in three 
years all but a few days. Through all their troubles, a 
careful record of dates had been kept, and the officers 
were surprised to find that what they imagined to be the 
6th was actually the 7th of September in Seville; and they 
were at a loss to know how the one day had been missed, 



250 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

being of course unaware that this is the invariable result 
of circumnavigating the world from East to West. 

Of the total number of two hundred and eighty hands 
originally shipped, only a remnant remained, of whom 
seventeen, together with the captain, Juan Sebastian 
Elcano, were on board the "Victoria." 

The city of Seville received them with acclamation; 
but their first act was to walk barefooted, in procession, 
holding lighted candles in their hands, to the church, to 
give thanks to the Almighty for their safe deliverance 
from the hundred dangers which they had encountered. 
Clothes, money, and all necessaries were supplied to them 
by royal bounty, and Elcano and the most intelligent 
of his companions were cited to appear at court to nar- 
rate their adventures. His Majesty received them with 
marked deference. Elcano was rewarded with a life pen- 
sion of five hundred ducats (worth at that date about five 
hundred and sixty dollars), and as a lasting remembrance 
of his unprecedented feat, his royal master knighted him 
and conceded to him the right of using on his escutcheon 
a globe bearing the motto: ** Primus circundedit me." 

Two of Elcano's oflScers, Miguel de Rodas and Fran- 
cisco Alva, were each awarded a life pension of fifty thou- 
sand maravedis (worth at that time about seventy dol- 
ars), while the king ordered one-fourth of that fifth part 
of the cargo, which by contract with Maghallanes be- 
longed to the State Treasury, to be distributed among the 
crew, including those imprisoned in Santiago Island. 

Meanwhile the "Trinidad" was repaired in Tidor and 
on her way to Panama, when continued tempests and the 
horrible sufferings of the crew determined them to retrace 



THE PHILIPPINES. 261 

their course to the Moluccas. In this interval Portugpiese 
ships had arrived there, and a fort was being constructed 
to defend Portuguese interests against the Spaniards, 
whom they regarded as interlopers. The "Trinidad** was 
seized, and the captain, Espinosa, with the survivors of 
his crew, were afforded a passage to Ldsbon, which place 
they reached five years after they had set out with Mag* 
hallanes. 

The enthusiasm of King Charles was equal to the im« 
portance of the discoveries which gave renown to his sub* 
jects and added glory to his crown. ^Notwithstanding a 
protracted controversy with the Portuguese comi;, whidi 
claimed the exclusive right of trading with the Spice M* 
ands, he ordered another squadron of six ships to be fitted 
out for a voyage to the Moluccas. The supreme command 
was confided to Garcia Yofre de Loaisa, Knight of St. 
John, while Sebastian Elcano was appointed captain of 
one of the vessels. After passing through the Magellan 
Straits, the commander, Loaisa, succmnbed to the fatigues 
and privations of the stormy voyage. Elcano succeeded 
him, but only for four days, when he too expired. The 
expedition, however, arrived safely at the Molucca Isl- 
ands, where they found the Portuguese in full possession 
and strongly established; but the long series of combats^ 
struggles and altercations which ensued between the rival 
powers, in which Captain Andres de Urdaneta prominently 
figured, left no decisive advantage to either nation. 

But the king was in no way disheartened. A third ex* 
pedition — the last under his auspices — was organized and 
dispatched from the Pacific coast of Mexico by the vice- 
roy, by royal mandate. It was composed of two ships, 



252 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

two transports and one galley, well manned and armed, 
chosen from the fleet of Pedro Alvarado, late governor of 
Guatemala. Under the leadership of Ruy Lopez de Vil- 
lalobos it sailed on the 1st of ITovember, 1542; discovered 
many small islands in the Pacific; lost the galley on the 
way, and anchored off an island about twenty miles in cir- 
cumference, which was named Antonia. They found its 
inhabitants very hostile. A fight ensued, but the natives 
finally fled, leaving several Spaniards wounded, of whom 
six died. Villalobos then announced his intention of re- 
maining here some time, and ordered his men to plant 
maize. At first they demurred, saying that they had 
come to fight, not to till land, but at length necessity 
urged them to obedience, and a small but insufficient crop 
was reaped in due season. Hard pressed for food, they 
lived principally on cats, rats, lizards, snakes, dogs, roots 
and wild fruit, and several died of disease. In this plight 
a ship was sent to Mindanao Island, commanded by Ber- 
nado de la Torre, to seek provisions. The voyage was 
fruitless. The party was opposed by the inhabitants, who 
fortified themselves, but were dislodged and slain. Then 
a vessel was commissioned to Mexico with news and to 
solicit re-enforcements. On the way. Volcano Island (of 
the Ladrone Islands group) was discovered on the 6th 
of August, 1543. A most important event followed. A 
galiot was built and dispatched to the islands (it is 
doubtful which), named by this expedition the Philip- 
pine Islands in honor of Philip, prince of Asturias, the 
son of King Charles I., heir apparent to the throne of 
Castile, to which he ascended in 1555 under the title of 
Philip II., on the abdication of his father. 



THE PHILIPPINES, 253 

The craft returned from the Philippine Islands laden 
with abundance of provisions, with which the ships were 
enabled to continue the voyage. 

By the royal instructions, Ruy Lopez de Villalobos 
was strictly enjoined not to touch at the Moluccas Isl- 
ands, peace having been concluded with Portugal. Heavy 
gales forced him, nevertheless, to take refuge at Gilolo. 
The Portuguese, suspicious of his intentions in view of 
the treaty, arrayed their forces against his, inciting the 
king of the island also to discard all Spanish overtures 
and refuse assistance to Villalobos. The discord and con- 
tentions between the Portuguese and Spaniards were in- 
creasing; nothing was being gained by either party. Villa- 
lobos personally was sorely disheartened in the struggle, 
fearing all the while that his opposition to the Portuguese 
in contravention of the royal instructions would only ex- 
cite the king's displeasure and lead to his own downfall. 
Hence he decided to capitulate with his rival and accepted 
a safe conduct for himself and party to Europe in Por- 
tuguese ships. They arrived at Amboina Island, where 
Villalobos, already crushed by grief, succumbed to dis- 
ease. The survivors of the expedition, among whom were 
several priests, continued the journey home via Malacca, 
Cochin-China and Goa, where they embarked for Ldsbon, 
arriving there in 1549. 

In 1668, King Charles was no more, but the memory 
of his ambition outlived him. His son Philip, equally 
emulous and unscrupulous, was too narrow-minded and 
subtly cautious to initiate an expensive enterprise encom* 
passed by so many hazards — ^as materially unproductive 
as it was devoid of immediate political importance. In- 



254 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

deed the basis of the first expedition was merely to dis- 
cover a western route to the rich Spice Islands, already 
known to exist; the second went there to attempt to es- 
tablish Spanish empire; and the third to search for and 
annex to the Spanish crown lands as wealthy as those 
claimed by and now yielded to the Portuguese. 

But the value of the Philippine Islands, of which the 
possession was but recent and nominal, was thus far a 
matter of doubt. 

One of the most brave and intrepid captains of the 
Loaisa expedition — Andres de Urdaneta — returned to 
Spain in 1536. In former years he had fought under 
King Charles I., in his wars in Italy, when the study of 
navigation served him as a favorite pastime. Since his 
return from the Moluccas his constant attention was given 
to the project of a new expedition to the Far West, for 
which he unremittingly solicited the royal sanction and 
assistance. But the king had grown old and weary of 
the world, and, while he did not openly discourage Urda- 
neta's pretensions, he gave him no effective aid. At length 
in 1553, two years before Charles abdicated, Urdaneta, 
convinced of the futility of his importunity at the Spanish 
court, and equally unsuccessful with his scheme in other 
quarters, retired to Mexico, where he took the habit of an 
Augustine monk. Ten years afterward King Philip, in- 
spired by the religious sentiment which pervaded his whole 
policy, urged his viceroy in Mexico to fit out an expedition 
to conquer and Christianize the Philippine Islands. Urda- 
neta, now a priest, was not overlooked. Accompanied by 
five priests of his order, he was intrusted with the spirit- 
ual care of the races to be subdued by an expedition com- 



TEE PHILIPPINES. 855 

posed of four ehips and one frigate well armed, carrying 
four hundred soldiers and sailors, commanded by a Basque 
navigator, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi. Tlds remarkable 
man was destined to acquire the fame of having estab- 
lished Spanish dominion in these islands. He was of noble 
birth and a native of the province of Guipuzcoa in Spain, 
Having settled in the City of Mexico, of which place he 
was elected mayor, he there practiced as a notary. Of 
undoubted piety, he enjoyed a reputation for his justice 
and loyalty, hence he was appointed general of the forces 
equipped for the voyage. 

The favorite desire to possess the valuable Spice Isl- 
ands still lurked in the minds of many Spaniards — among 
them was Urdaneta, who labored in vain to persuade the 
viceroy of the superior advantages to be gained by annex- 
ing New Guinea instead of the Philippines — ^whence the 
conquest of the Moluccas would be but a facile task. 
However, the viceroy was inexorable and resolved to ful- 
fill the royal instructions to the letter, so the expedition 
set sail from the Mexican port of Navidad for the Philip- 
pine Islands on the 21st of November, 1564. 

The Ladrone Islands were passed on the 9th of January, 
1565, and on the 13th of the following month the Philip- 
pines were sighted. A call for provisions was made at 
several small islands, including Camiguin, whence the ex- 
pedition sailed to Bojol Island. A boat dispatched to the 
port of Butuan returned in a fortnight with the news that 
there was much gold, wax and cinnamon in that district. 
A small vessel was also sent to Cebu, and on its return 
reported that the natives showed hostility, having decapi- 
tated one of the crew while he was bathing. 



356 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

Nevertheless, General Legaspi resolved to put in at 
Cebu, which vras a safe port; and on the way there the 
ships anchored off Limasana Island (to the south of Leyte). 
Thence, running S.W., the port of Dapitan (Mindanao Isl- 
and) was reached. 

Prince Pagbuaya, who ruled there, was astonished at 
the sight of such formidable ships, and commissioned one of 
his subjects, specially chosen for his boldness, to take note 
of their movements and report to him. His account was 
uncommonly interesting. He related that enormous men 
with long pointed noses, dressed in fine robes, ate stones 
(hard biscuits), drank fire and blew smoke out of their 
mouths and through their nostrils. Their power was such 
that they commanded thunder and lightning (discbarge of 
artillery), and that at meal times they sat down at a 
clothed table. From their lofty port, their bearded faces 
and rich attire, they might have been the very gods mani- 
festing themselves to the natives; so the prince thought it 
wise to accept the friendly overtures of such marvelous 
strangers. Besides obtaining ample provisions in barter 
for European wares, Legaspi procured from this chieftain 
much useful information respecting the condition of Cebu. 
He learned that it was esteemed a powerful kingdom, of 
which the magnificence was much vaunted among th© 
neighboring states; that the port was one of great safety 
and the most favorably situated among the islands of the 
painted faces. 

The general resolved therefore to filch it from its na- 
tive king and annex it to the crown of Castile. 

He landed in Cebu on the 27th of April, 1565, and 
negotiations were entered into with the natives of that 



THE PHILIPPINES. 367 

Island. Remembering how successfully they had rid them- 
selves of Maghallanes' party, they naturally opposed this 
renewed menace to their independence. The Spaniards 
occupied the town by force and sacked it, but for months 
were so harassed by the surrounding tribes that a council 
was convened to discuss the prudence of continuing the 
occupation. The general decided to remain, and, little by 
little, the natives yielded to the new condition of things, 
and thus the first step toward the final conquest was 
achieved. The natives were declared Spanish subjects, 
and hopeful with the success thus far attained, Legaspi 
determined to send dispatches to the king by the priest 
Urdaneta, who safely arrived at Navidad on the 3d of 
October, 1565, and proceeded thence to Spain. 

The pacification of Cebu and the adjacent islands was 
steadily and successfully pursued by Legaspi; the confi* 
dence of the natives was assured, and their dethroned 
king Tupas accepted Christian baptism, while his daugh« 
ter married a Spaniard. 

In the midst of the invaders' felicity, the Portuguese 
arrived to dispute the possession, but they were compelled 
to retire. A fortress was constructed and plots of land 
were marked out for the building of the Spanish settlers' 
residences, and finally, in 1570, Cebu was declared a city, 
after Legaspi had received from his royal master the title 
of governor-general of all the lands which he might be 
able to conquer. 

In May, 1570, Captain Juan Salcedo, Legaspi's grand- 
son, was dispatched to the Island of Luzon to reconnoiter 
the territory and bring it under Spanish dominion. 

The history of these early times is very confused, and 



268 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

there are many contradictions in the authors of the Philip- 
pine chronicles, none of which seem to have been written 
contemporaneously with the first events. It appears, how- 
ever, that Martin de Goiti and a few soldiers accompanied 
Salcedo to the north. They were well received by the 
native chiefs or petty kings Lacandola, rajah of Tondo 
(known as Rajah Matanda, which means in native dialect 
the aged rajah), and his nephew, the young Rajah Soli- 
man of Manila. 

The sight of a body of European troops, armed as was 
the custom in the sixteenth century, must have profoundly 
impressed and overawed these chieftains, otherwise it seems 
almost incredible that they should have consented, without 
protest, or attempt at resistance, to (forever) give up their 
territory, peld their independence, pay tribute,* and be- 



* Legaspi and Guido Lavezares, under oath, made prom* 
ises of rewards to the Lacandola family and a remission of 
tribute in perpetuity, but they were not fulfilled. In the 
following century-— year 1660 — ^it appears that the descend- 
ants of the rajah Lacandola still upheld the Spanish au- 
thority, and having become sorely unpoverished thereby, 
the heir of the family petitioned the governor (Sabiniano 
Manrique de Lara) to make good the honor of his first pre- 
decessors. Eventually the Lacandolas were exempted from 
the payment of tribute and poll tax forever, as recompense 
for the filching of their domains. 

In 1884, when the fiscal reforms were introduced which 
abolished the tribute and established in lieu thereof a docU" 
ment of personal identity (cedula personal), for which a tax 
is levied, the last vestige of privilege disappeared. 

Descendants of Lacandola are still to be met with in sev- 
eral villages near Manila. They do not seem to have mate- 
rially profited by their transcendent ancestry — one of them 
was serving as a waiter in a French restaurant in the capi- 
tal in 1885. 



THE PHILIPPINES. 259 

come the tools of invading foreigners with which to con- 
quer their own race, without recompense whatsoever. 

A treaty of peace was signed and ratified by an ex- 
change of drops of blood between the parties thereto. Soli- 
man, however, soon repented of his poltroonery, and raised 
the war cry among some of his tribes. To save his capital 
(then called Maynila) falling into the hands of the invad- 
ers he set fire to it. Lacandola remained passively watch- 
ing the issue. Soliman was completely routed by Salcedo, 
and pardoned on his again swearing fealty to the King of 
Spain. Goiti remained in the vicinity of Manila with his 
troops, while Salcedo fought his way to the Bombon Lake 
(Taal) district. The present Batangas Province was sub- 
dued by him and included in the jurisdiction of Mindoro 
Island. During the campaign Salcedo was severely 
wounded by an arrow and returned to Manila. 

Legaspi was in the Island of Panay when Salcedo 
(some writers say Goiti) arrived to advise him of what 
had occurred in Luzon. They at once proceeded together 
to Cavite, where Lacandola visited Legaspi on board, and, 
prostrating himself, averred his submission. Then Legaspi 
continued his journey to Manila, and was received there 
with acclamation. He took formal possession of the sur- 
rounding territory, declared Manila to be the capital of 
the archipelago, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the 
King of Spain over the whole group of islands. Gaspar 
de San Agustin, writing of this period, says: "He (Le- 
gaspi) ordered them (the natives) to finish the building of 
the fort in construction at the mouth of the river (Pasig), 
so that his majesty's artillery might be mounted therein 
for the defense of the port and the town. Also he or- 



860 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

dered them to build a large house inside the battlement 
walls for Legasp?s own residence — another large house 
and church for the priests, etc. . • . Besides these two 
large houses he told them to erect one hundred and fifty 
dwellings of moderate size for the remainder of the Span* 
Sards to live in. All this they promptly promised to do, 
but they did not obey, for the Spaniards were themselves 
obliged to terminate the work of the fortifications/' 

The Oily Council of Manila was constituted on the 
24th of June, 1671. On the 20th of August, 1572, Miguel 
Lopez de Legaspi succumbed to the fatigues of his ardiu 
ous life, leaving behind him a name which will always 
maintain a prominent place in Spanish colonial history. 
He was buried in Manila in the Augustine Chapel of San 
Fausto, where hung the royal standard and the hero*s 
armorial bearings until tiie British troops occupied the 
city in 1763. 

**Death makes no conquest of this conqueror. 
For now he lives in fame, though not in life,** 

— "Eichard III.," Act 3, Sc. 1. 

In the meantime Salcedo continued his task of sub* 
jecting the tribes in the interior. The natives of Tay« 
tay, and Cainta, in the present military district of Mo- 
rong, submitted to him on the 15th of August, 1571. He 
returned to the Laguna de Bay to pacify the villagers, 
and penetrated as far as Camarines Norte to explore the 
Bicol River. Bolinao and the provinces of Pangasinan 
and Ilocos yielded to his prowess, and in this last prov- 
ince he had well established himself when the defense of 
the capital obliged him to return to Manila. 



THE PHILIPPINES. 26X 

At the same time Martin de Goiti was actively em- 
ployed in overrunning the Pampanga territory, with the 
double object of procuring supplies for the Manila camp 
and coercing the inhabitants on his way to acknowledge 
their new liege lord. It is recorded that in this expedition 
Goiti was joined by the rajahs of Tondo and Manila. Yet 
Lacandola appears to have been regarded more as a ser- 
vant of the Spaniards nolens volens than as a free ally; 
for, because he absented himself from Goiti's camp ''with- 
out lic'fense from the Maestre de Campo," he was suspected 
by some writers of having favored opposition to the Span- 
iards' incursions in the Marshes of Hagonoy (Pampanga 
coast, northern boundary of Manila Bay). 

The district which constituted the ancient province of 
Taal y Balayan, subsequently denominated Province of 
Batangas, was formerly governed by a number of ca- 
ciques, the most notable of which were Gatpagil and Gat- 
jinlintan. They were usually at war with their neighbors. 
Gatjinlintan, the cacique of the Batangas River at the 
time of the conquest, was famous for his valor. Gatsun- 
gayan, who ruled on the other side of the river, was cele- 
brated as a hunter of deer and wild boar. These men 
were half-castes of Borneo and Aeta extraction, who formed 
a distinct race called by the natives Daghagang. None of 
them would submit to the King of Spain or become Chris- 
tians, hence their descendants were offered no privileges. 

On the death of General Legaspi, the government of 
the colony was assumed by the royal treasurer, Guide d© 
Lavezares, in conformity with the sealed instructions from 
the Supreme Court of Mexico, which were now opened. 
During this period, the possession of the islands was un^ 



262 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

successfully disputed by a rival expedition under the com- 
mand of a Chinaman, Li-ma-hong, whom the Spaniards 
were pleased to term a pirate, forgetting, perhaps, that 
they themselves had only recently wrested the country 
from its former possessors by virtue of might against 
right. On the coasts of his native country he had in- 
deed been a pirate. For the many depredations committed 
by him against private traders and property, the Celestial 
Emperor, failing to catch him by cajolery, outlawed him. 
Bom in the port of Tiuchiu, Li-ma-hong at an early 
age evinced a martial spirit and joined a band of corsairs, 
which for a long time had been the terror of the China 
coasts. On the demise of his chief he was unanimously 
elected leader of the buccaneering cruisers. At length, pur- 
sued in all directions by the imperial ships of war, he de- 
termined to attempt the conquest of the Philippines. Pre- 
sumably the same incentives which impelled the Spanish 
mariners to conquer lands and overthrow dynasties — the 
vision of wealth, glory and empire — awakened a like am- 
bition in the Chinese adventurer. It was the spirit of the 
age.* In his sea- wanderings he happened to fall in with 
a Chinese trading junk re1»urning from Manila with the 
proceeds of her cargo sold there. This he seized, and the 
captive crew were constrained to pilot his fleet toward 
the capital of Luzon. From them he learned how easily 
the natives had been plundered by a handful of foreigners 

* Guido de Lavezares deposed a sultan in Borneo, in 
order to aid another to the throne, and even asked permis- 
sion of King Philip II. to conquer China, which of course 
was not conceded to him. Viae also the history of the de-* 
structionof the Aztec (Mexican) and Incas (Peruvian) dynas- 
ties by the Spaniards. 



THE PHILIPPINES, 263 

—the probable extent of the opposition he might encoun* 
ter — ^the defenses established — ^the wealth and resources 
of the district and the nature of its inhabitants. 

His fleet consisted of sixty-two warships or armed 
junks, well found, having on board two thousand sail- 
ors, two thousand soldiers, one thousand five hundred 
women, a number of artisans, and all that could be con- 
veniently carried with which to gain and organize his 
new kingdom. On its way the squadron cast anchor off 
♦he province of Docos Sur, where a few troops were sent 
ashore to get provisions. While returning to the junks, 
they sacked the village and set fire to the huts. The 
news of this outrage was hastily communicated to Juan 
Balcedo, who had been pacifying the northern provinces 
since July, 1572, and was at the time in Villa Femandina 
(now called Yigan). Ld-ma-hoi^ continued his course im- 
til oalms compelled his ships to anchor in the roads of 
Oaoayan (Ilocos coast), where a few Spanish soldiers were 
stationed imder the orders of Juan Salcedo, who still was 
in the immediate town of Vigan. Under his direction, 
preparations were made to prevent the enemy entering the 
river, but such was not Li-ma-hong's intention. He again 
set sail; while Salcedo, naturally supposing his course 
would be toward Manila, also started at the same time 
for the capital with all the fighting men he could collect, 
leaving omy thirty men to garrison Vigan and protect the 
State interests thersr 

On the 29th of November, 1574, the squadron arrived in 
the Bay of Manila, and Li-ma~hong sent forward his lieu- 
tenant, Sioco — a Japanese — at the head of six hundred 
fighting men, to demand the surrender of the Spaniards. 

12 



«64 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

A strong gale, however, destroyed several of his junks, 
in which about two hundred men perished. 

With the remainder he reached the coast at Paranaque, 
a village a few miles south of Manila. Thence, with tow 
lines, the four hundred soldiers hauled their junks up to 
the beach of the capital. 

Already at the village of Malate the alarm was raised, 
but the Spaniards could not give credit to the reports, and 
no resistance was offered until the Chinese were within 
the gates of the city. Martin de Goiti, the Maestre de 
Campo, second in command to the governor, was the first 
victim of the attack. 

The flames and smoke arising from his burning resi- 
dence were the first indications which the governor re- 
ceived of what was going on. The Spaniards took refuge 
in the fort of Santiago, which the Chinese were on the 
point of taking by storm, when their attention was drawn 
elsewhere by the arrival of fresh troops led by a Spanish 
sub-lieutenant. Under the mistaken impression that these 
were the vanguard of a formidable corps, Sioco sounded 
the retreat. A bloody hand-to-hand combat followed, and 
with great difficulty the Chinese collected their dead and 
regained their junks. 

In the meantime Li-ma-hong, with the reserved forces, 
was lying in the roadstead of Cavite, and Sioco hastened 
to report to him the result of the attack, which had cost 
the invader over one hundred dead and more than that 
number wounded. Thereupon Li-ma-hong resolved to rest 
his troops and renew the conflict in two days' time under 
his personal supervision. The next day Juan Salcedo ar- 
rived by sea with re-enforcements from Yigan, and prepa- 



> 

H 



a 

H 







TEE PHILIPPINES. 266 

rations were unceasingly made for the expected enoonnter. 
Salcedo having been appointed to the office of Maestre de 
Campo, vacant since the death of Qoiti, the organization 
of the defense was intrusted to his immediate care. 

By daybreak on the 3d of December, the enemy's fleet 
hove to off the capital, where Li-ma-hong harangued his 
troops, while the cornets and drums of the Spaniards were 
sounding the alarm for their fighting men to assemble in 
the fort. 

Then fifteen hundred chosen men, well armed, were 
disembarked under the leadership of Sioco, who swore to 
take the place or die in the attempt. Sioco separated his 
forces into three divisions. The city was set fire to, and 
Sioco advanced toward the fort, into which hand-grenades 
were thrown, while Li-ma-hong supported the attack with 
his ships' cannon. 

Sioco, with his division, at length entered the fort, and 
a hand-to-hand fight ensued. For a while the issue was 
doubtful. Salcedo fought like a lion. Even the aged 
governor was well at the front to encourage ilie deadly 
struggle for existence. The Spaniards finallj gained the 
victory; the Chinese were repulsed with great slaughter; 
and their leader having been killed, they fled in complete 
disorder. Salcedo, profiting by the confusion, now took 
the offensive and followed up the enemy, pursuing them 
along the seashore, where they were joined by the third 
division, which had remained inactive. The panic of the 
Chinese spread rapidly, and Li-ma-hong, in despair, landed 
another contingent of about five himdred men, while hs 
still continued afloat; but even with this le-eofovoeineiil 
the morale of his army could not be regained. 



JJ66 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

The Chinese troops therefore, harassed on all sides, 
made a precipitate retreat on board the fleet, and Li- 
ma-hong set sail again for the west coast of the island. 
Foiled in the attempt to possess himself of Manila, Li-ma- 
hong determined to set up his capital in other parts. In 
a few days he arrived at the mouth of the Agno River, 
in the province of Pangasinan, where he proclaimed to 
the natives that he had gained a signal victory over the 
Spaniards. The inhabitants there, having no particular 
choice between two masters, received Li-ma-hong with 
welcome, and he thereupon set about the foundation of 
his new capital some four miles from the mouth of the 
river. Months passed before the Spaniards came in force 
to dislodge the invader. Feeling themselves secure in 
their new abode, the Chinese had built many dwellings, 
a small fortress, a pagoda, etc. At length an expedition 
was dispatched under the command of Juan Salcedo. 
This was composed of about two hundred and fifty Span- 
iards and one thousand six hundred natives well equipped 
with small arms, ammunition and artillery. The flower 
of the Spanish colony, accompanied by two priests and the 
Rajah of Tondo, set out to expel the formidable foe. 
Li-ma-hong made a bold resistance and refused to come 
to terms with Salcedo. In the meantime, the Viceroy of 
Fokien, having heard of Li-ma-hong's daring exploits, 
had commissioned a ship of war to discover the where- 
about of his imperial master's old enemy. The envoy 
was received with delight by the Spaniards, who invited 
him to accompany them to Manila to interview the 
governor. 

Li-ma-hong still held out, but perceiving that an irre- 



TBE PHIUPPINSS. 267 

sfetdble onslaught was being projected against him by 
SaJcedo's party, he very cunningly and quite unexpectedly 
g&ve them the slip, and sailed out of the river with his 
ships by one of the mouths unknown to his enemies.* In 
order to divert the attention of the Spaniards, Li-ma4iong 
ingeniously feigned an assault in an opposite quarter. Of 
course, on his escape, he had to abandon the troopB em- 
ployed in this maneuver. These, losing aU hope^ and 
having, indeed, nothing but their lives to fight for, £ed 
to the mountains. Hence, it is popularly supposed thai 
from these fugitives descends the race (^ people in that 
province still distinguishable by their oblique eyes and 
known by the name of Igorrote-Chinese. 

^'Aide toi et Dieu t'aidera'' is an old French naasdm, 
but the Spaniards chose to attribute thdr deliverance from 
their Chinese rival to the friendly intervention of Saint 
Andrew. Tliis saint was declared thenceforth to be the 
patron saint of Manila, and in his honor High Mass is 
celebrated in the Cathedral at 8 A.M. on the 30th of each 
November. It is a public holiday and gala-day, when all 
the highest civil, military and religious authorities attend 
the "Funcion votiva de San Andr6s." This opportimity to 
assert the supremacy of ecclesiastical power was not lost 
to the Church, and for many years it was the custom, 
after hearing Mass, to spread the Spanish national flag on 
the floor of the Cathedral for the metropolitan archbishop 
to walk over it. It has been asserted, however, that a 

* According to Juan de la Concepcion, in his "Hist. 
Gen. de Philipinas," Vol. I., page 431, Li-ma-hong made 
his escape by cutting a canal tor his ships to pass through, 
but thk appears highly improbable under the oiroumstanoes. 



268 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

few years ago the governor-general refused to witness 
this antiquated formula, which, in public at least, no 
longer obtains. Now it is the practice to carry the 
royal standard before the altar. Both before and after 
the Mass, the bearer (AKerez Real), wearing his hat and 
accompanied by the mayor of the city, stands on the 
altar-floor, raises his hat three times, and three times dips 
the flag before the Image of Christ, then, facing the pub- 
lie, he repeats this ceremony. On Saint Andrew's eve, 
the royal standard is borne in procession from the Cathe- 
dral through the principal streets of the city, escorted by 
dvil functionaries and followed by a band of music. This 
cseremony is known as the "Paseo del Real Pendon." 

According to Juan de la Concepcion, the Rajahs* Soli- 
man and Lacandola took advantage of these troubles to 
raise a rebellion against the Spaniards. The natives too 
of Mindoro Island revolted and maltreated the priests, but 
all these disturbances were speedily quelled by a detach- 
ment of soldiers. 

The governor willingly accepted the offer of the com- 
mander of the Chinese man-of-war to convey embassadors 
to his country to visit the viceroy and make a commer- 
cial treaty. Therefore two priests, Martin Rada and 
Geronimo Martin, were commissioned to carry a letter 
of greeting and presents to this personage, who received 
them with great distinction, but objected to their residing 
in the country. 

After the defeat of Li-ma-hong, Juan Salcedo again 
repaired to the northern provinces of Luzon Island, to 



* Other authors assert that only Soliman rebelled. 



I 



THE PHILIPPINES. 269 

continue his task of reducing the natives to submission. 
On the 11th of March, 1576, he died of fever near Vigan 
(then called Villa Fernandina), capital of the province of 
Ilocos Sur. A year afterward, what could be found of his 
bones were placed in the ossuary of his illustrious grand- 
father, Legaspi, in the Augustine Chapel of Saint Fausto, 
Manila. His skull, however, which had been carried off 
by the natives of Ilocos, could not be recovered in spite of 
all threats and promises. In Vigan there is a small mon- 
ument raised to commemorate the deeds of this famous 
warrior, and there is also a street bearing his name. 

For several years following these events, the question 
of prestige in the civil affairs of the colony was acrimoni- 
ously contested by the governor-general, the supreme court 
and the ecclesiastics. 

The governor was censured by his opponents for alleged 
undue exercise of arbitrary authority. The supreme court, 
established on the Mexican model, was reproached with 
iSeeking to overstep the limits of its functions. Every legal 
quibble was adjusted by a dilatory process, impracticable 
In a colony yet in its infancy, where summary justice was 
indispensable for the maintenance of order imperfectly un- 
derstood by the masses. But the fault laid less with the 
justices than with the constitution of the court itself. Nor 
was this state of affairs improved by the growing discon- 
tent and immoderate ambition of the clergy, who unre- 
mittingly urged their pretensions to immunity from State 
control, aflfirming the supramundane condition of their 
office. 

An excellent code of laws, called the Leyes de Indias, 
in force in Mexico, was adopted here, but modifications in 



270 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

harmony with the special conditions of this colony were 
urgently necessary, while all the branches of goyernment 
called for reorganization or reform. Under these circum- 
stances, the bishop of Manila, Domingo Salazar, took the 
initiative in commissioning a priest, Fray Alonso Sanchez, 
to repair first to the viceroy of Mexico and afterward 
to the King of Spain, to expose the grievances of his 
party. 

Alonso Sanchez left the Philippines with his appoint- 
ment as procurator-general for the Augustine order of 
monks. As the execution of the proposed reforms, which 
he was charged to lay before his majesty, would, if con- 
ceded, be intrusted to the government of Mexico, his firsfc 
care was to seek the partisanship of the viceroy of that 
colony; and in this he succeeded. Thence he continued 
his journey to Seville, where the court happened to be, 
arriving there in September, 1587. H: was at once 
granted an audience of the king, to present his cre- 
dentials and memorials relative to Philippine affairs in 
general; and ecclesiastical, judicial, military and native 
matters in particular. The king promised to peruse all 
the documents, but suffering from gout, and having so 
many and distinct State concerns to attend to, the nego- 
tiations were greatly delayed. Finally, Sanchez sought 
a minister who had easy access to the royal apartments, 
and this personage obtained from the king permission to 
examine the documents and hand to him a succinct re- 
sume of the whole for his majesty's consideration. A 
commission was then appointed, including Sanchez, and 
the deliberations lasted five months. 

At this period, public opinion in the Spanish univer- 



THE PHILIPPINES. 271 

sities was very divided with respect to CathoKc missions 
in the Indies. 

Some maintained that the propaganda of the faith 
ought to be purely Apostolic, such as Jesus Christ taught 
to his disciples, inculcating doctrines of humility and 
poverty without arms or violence, and if, nevertheless, 
the heathens refused to welcome this mission of peace, 
the missionaries should simply abandon them in silence 
without further demonstration than that of shaking the 
dust off their feet. 

Others opined, and among them was Sanchez, that 
such a method was useless and impracticable, and that 
it was justifiable to force their religion upon primitive 
races at the point of the sword if necessary, using any 
violence to enforce its acceptance. 

Much ill-feeling was aroused in the discussion of these 
two and distinct theories. Juan Yolante, a Dominican 
friar of the Convent of Our Lady of Atocha, presented 
a petition against the views of the Sanchez faction, de- 
claring that the idea of ingrafting religion with the aid 
of arms was scandalous. Fray Juan Volante was so 
importunate, that he had to be heard in council, but 
neither party yielded. At length, the intervention of the 
bishops of Manila, Macao and Malacca and several cap- 
tains and governors in the Indies influenced the king to 
put an end to the controversy, on the ground that it 
would lead to no good. 

The king retired to the Monastery of the Escorial, and 
Sanchez was cited to meet him there to learn the royal 
will. About the same time the news reached the king 
of the loss of the so-called Invincible Armada, sent undeF 



272, H1S20RY OF SPAIN. 

the command of the incompetent Duke of Medina Sidonia 
to annex England. Notwithstanding this severe blow to 
the Tain ambition of Philip, the affairs of the Philippines 
were delayed but a short time. On the basis of the rec- 
ommendation of the junta, the royal assent was given to 
an important decree, of which the most significant ar- 
ticles are the following, namely: — The tribute was fixed 
by the king at ten reales per annum, payable by the na- 
tives in gold, silver, or grain, or part in one commodity 
and part in the other. Of this tribute, eight reales were 
to be paid to the treasury, one half real to the bishop 
and clergy, and one real and a half to be applied to 
the maintenance of the soldiery. Full tribute was not 
to be exacted from the natives still unsubjeoted to the 
crown. Until their confidence and loyalty should be 
gained by friendly overtures, they were to pay a small 
recognition of vassalage, and subsequently the tribute in 
common with the rest. 

Instead of one-fifth value of gold and hidden treasure 
due to his majesty (real quinto), he would henceforth re- 
ceive only one-tenth of such value, excepting that of gold, 
which the natives would be permitted to extract free of 
rebate. 

A custom? duty of 3 per cent ad valorem was to be 
paid on merchandise sold, and this duty was to be spent 
on the army. 

Export duty was to be paid on goods shipped to New 
Spain (Mexico), and this impost was also to be exclusively 
spent on the armed forces. 

The number of European troops in the colony was fixed 
at four hundred men-at-arms, divided into six companies, 



THE PHILIPPINES. 273 

each under a captain, a sub-lieutenant, a sergeant, and two 
corporals. Their pay was to be as follows, namely: Cap- 
tain thirty-five dollars, sub-lieutenant twenty dollars, ser- 
geant ten dollars, corporal seven dollars, rank and file six 
dollars per month; besides which, an annual gratuity of 
ten thousand dollars was to be proportionately distributed 
to all. 

Recruits from Mexico were not to enlist under the age 
of fifteen years. 

The captain-general was to have a body-guard of 
twenty-four men (halberdiers), with the pay of those 
of the line, under the immediate command of a cap- 
tain to be paid fifteen dollars per month. 

Salaries due to State employes were to be punctually 
paid when due; and when funds were wanted for that 
purpose they were to be supplied from Mexico. 

The king made a donation of twelve thousand dollars, 
which, with another like sum to be contributed by the 
Spaniards themselves, would serve to liquidate their debts 
incurred on their first occupation of the islands. 

The governor and bishop were recommended to con- 
sider the project of a refuge for young Spanish women 
arrived from Spain, and to study the question of dowries 
for native women married to poor Spaniards, 

The offices of secretaries and notaries were no longer 
to be sold, but conferred on persons who merited such 
appointments. 

The governors were instructed not to make grants of 
land to their relations, servants or friends, but solely to 
those who should have resided at least three years in the 
islands, and have worked the lands so conceded. Any 



274 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

grants which might have already been made to the rela- 
tions of the governors or magistrates were to be canceled. 

The rent paid by the Chinese for the land they occu- 
pied was to be applied to the necessities of the capital. 

The governor and bishop were to enjoin the judges not 
to permit costly lawsuits, but to execute summary justice 
verbally, and, so far as possible, fines were not to be 
inflicted. 

The city of Manila was to be fortified in a manner to 
insure it against all further attacks or risings. 

Four penitentiaries were to be established in the isl- 
ands in the most convenient places, with the necessary 
garrisons, and six to eight galleys and frigates well armed 
and ready for defense against the English corsairs which 
might come by way of the Moluccas. 

In the most remote and unexplored parts of the isl- 
ands, the governor was to have unlimited powers to act 
as he should please, without consulting his majesty; but 
projected enterprises of conversion, pacification, etc., at 
the expense of the royal treasury, were to be submitted 
to a council, comprising the bishop, the captains, etc. The 
governor was authorized to capitulate and agree with the 
captains and others who might care to undertake conver- 
sions and pacifications on their own account, and to con- 
cede the title of Maestre de Campo to such persons, on 
condition that such capitulations should be forwarded to 
his majesty for ratification. 

Only those persons domiciled in the islands would be 
permitted to trade with them. 

A sum of one thousand dollars was to be taken from 
the tributes paid into the royal treasury for the founda- 



TEE PHILIPPINES, 275 

tion of the hospital for the Spaniards, and the annuel sum 
of six hundred dollars, appropriated by the governor for 
its support, was confirmed. Moreover, the royal treasury 
of Mexico was to send clothing to the value of four hun* 
dred ducats for the hospital use. 

The hospital for the natives was to receive an annua] 
donation of six hundred dollars for its support, and an 
immediate supply of clothing from Mexico to the value 
of two hundred dollars. 

Slaves held by Spaniards were to be immediately set at 
liberty. "No native was thenceforth to be enslaved. All 
new born natives were declared free. The bondage of all 
existing slaves from ten years of age was to cease on their 
attaining twenty years of age. Those above twenty years 
of age were to serve five years longer, and then become 
free. At any time, notwithstanding the foregoing oondi* 
tions, they would be entitled to purchase their liberty, the 
price of which was to be determined by the governor and 
the bishop.* 

There being no tithes payable to the church by Span- 
iards or natives, the clergy were to receive for their main* 
tenance the half real above mentioned in lieu thereof, 
from the tribute paid by each native subjected to the 

* Bondage in the Philippines was apparently not so ii@oes> 
sary for the interests of the Church as it was in Cuba, where 
a commission of friars, appointed soon after the discovery o€ 
the island to deliberate on the policy of partially permitting 
slavery there, reported "that the Indians would not labor 
without compulsion, and that, unless they labored, they 
could not be brought into communication with the whites, 
nor be converted to Christianity." Vide W. H. Presoott'e 
**Hist. of the Conquest of Mexicx).'* 



JI76 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

crown. When the Spaniards should have crops, they 
were to pay tithes to the clergy. 

A grant was made of twelve thousand ducats for the 
building and ornaments of the Cathedral, and an immedi- 
ate advance of two thousand ducats, on account of this 
grant, was made from the funds to be remitted from 
Mexico. 

Forty Austin friars were to be sent at once to the 
Philippines, to be followed by missionaries from other cor- 
porations. The king allowed five hundred dollars to be 
paid against the one thousand dollars' passage money for 
each priest, the balance to be defrayed out of the com- 
mon funds of the clergy, derived from their share of 
the tribute. 

Missionaries in great numbers had already flocked to 
the Philippines and roamed wherever they thought fit, 
without license from the bishop, whose authority they 
utterly repudiated. 

Affirming that they had the direct consent of his holi- 
ness the Pope, they menaced with excommunication who- 
soever attempted to impede them in their free peregrina- 
tion. Five years after the foundation of Manila, the city 
and environs were infested with niggardly mendicant 
friars, whose slothful habits placed their supercilious 
countrymen in ridicule before the natives. They were 
tolerated but a short time in the islands; not altogether 
because of the ruin they would have brought to Euro- 
pean moral influence on the untutored tribes, but because 
the bishop was highly jealous of all competition against 
the Augustine order to which he belonged. Consequent 
on the representations of Fray Alonso Sanchez, his maj- 



THE PHILIPPINES. 277 

esty ordained that all priests who went to the Philippines 
were, in the first place, to resolve never to quit the islands 
without the bishop's sanction, which was to be conceded 
with great circumspection and only in extreme cases, while 
the governor was instructed not to afford them means of 
exit on his sole authority. 

Neither did the bishop regard with satisfaction the 
presence of the commissary of the Inquisition, whose se- 
cret investigations, shrouded with mystery, curtailed the 
liberty of the loftiest functionary, sacred or civil. At 
the instigation of Fray Alonso Sanchez, the junta rec- 
ommended the king to recall the commissary and extin- 
guish the office, but he refused to do so. In short, the 
chief aims of the bishop were to enhance the power of 
the friars, raise the dignity of the colonial miter, and 
secure a religious monopoly for the Augustine order. 

Gomez Perez Dasmarinas was the next governor ap- 
pointed to these islands, on the recommendation of Fray 
Alonso Sanchez. In the royal instructions which he 
brought with him were embodied all the above men- 
tioned civil, ecclesiastical and military reforms. 

At the same time, King Philip abolished the supreme 
court. He wished to put an end to the interminable law- 
suits so prejudicial to the development of the colony. 
Therefore the president and magistrates were replaced 
by justices of the peace, and the former returned to 
Mexico in 1691. This measure served only to widen 
the breach between the bishop and the civil government. 
Dasmarinas compelled him to keep within the sphere of 
his sacerdotal functions, and tolerated no rival in State 
concerns. There was no appeal on the spot a^gainst the 



278 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

governor's authority. This restraint irritated and dis- 
gusted the bishop to such a degree, that at the age of 
seventy-eight years he resolved to present himself at the 
Spanish court. On his arrival there, he manifested to 
the king the impossibility of one bishop attending to the 
spiritual wants of a people dispersed over so many isl- 
ands. For seven years after the foundation of Manila, as 
capital of the archipelago, its principal church was sim- 
ply a parish church. In 1578 it was raised to the dignity 
of a cathedral, at the instance of the king. Three years 
after this date the Cathedral of Manila was solemnly de- 
clared to be a "Suffragan Cathedral of Mexico, under the 
Advocation of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception**; 
Domingo Salazar being the first bishop consecrated. He 
now proposed to raise the Manila see to an archbishopric, 
with three suffragan bishops. The king gave his consent, 
subject to approval from Rome, and, this following in due 
course, Salazar was appointed first archbishop of Manila; 
but he died before the Papal Bull arrived, dated the 14th 
of August, 1595, officially authorizing his investiture. 

In the meantime, Alonso Sanchez had proceeded to 
Rome in May, 1589. Among many other Pontifical favors 
conceded to him, he obtained the right for himself, or his 
assigns, to use a die or stamp of any form with one or 
more images; to be chosen by the holder, and to contain 
also the figure of Christ, the Very Holy Virgin, or the 
Saint — Peter or Paul. On the reverse was to be engraven 
a bust portrait of His Holiness with the following indul- 
gences attached thereto, viz.: — "To him who should con- 
vey the word of God to the infidels, or give them notice 
of the holy mysteries — each time 300 years' indulgence. 



THE PHILIPPINES. «79 

To him who, by industry, converted any one of these, or 
brought him to the bosom of the Church — full indulgence 
for all sins." A number of minor indulgences were con- 
ceded for services to be rendered to the Pontificate, and 
for the praying so many Pater Nosters and Ave Mariai^ 
This Bull was dated in Rome the 28th of July, 1691. 

Popes Gregory XI Y. and Innocent IX. granted other 
Bulls relating to the rewards for using beads, medals, 
crosses, pictures, blessed images, etc., with which one 
could gain nine plenary indulgences every day or rescue 
nine souls from purgatory; and each day, twice over, all 
the full indulgences yet given in and out of Rome could 
be obtained for living and deceased persons. 

Sanchez returned to Spain (where he died), bringing 
with him the body of Saint Policarp, a relic of Saint 
Potenciana, and one hundred and fifty seven martyrs; 
among them, twenty-seven popes, for remission to the 
Cathedral of Manila. 

The supreme court was re-established with the same 
faculties as those of Mexico and Lima in 1598, and since 
then, on seven occasions, when the governorship has be^ 
vacant, it has acted pro tem. The following interesting^ 
account of the pompous ceremonial attending the recep- 
tion of the Royal Seal, restoring this court, is given by 
Concepcion.* He says: "The Royal Seal of office was 
received from the ship with the accustomed solenmity. It 
was contained in a chest covered with purple velvet and 
trinandngs of silver and gold, over which hung a cloth of 
purple and gold. It was escorted by a majestic aocom- 

* "Hist. Gen. de Philipinas," by Juan de la GoDc^xnon, 
Vol. III., Chap. IX., page 366, pub. Manila, 1788. 



Jt80 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

paniment, marching to the sounds of clarions and cym- 
bals and other musical instruments. The cortege passed 
through the noble city with rich vestments, and leg trim- 
mings and uncovered heads. Behind these followed a 
horse, gorgeously caparisoned and girthed, for the presi- 
dent to place the coffer containing the Royal Seal upon 
its back. The streets were beautifully adorned with ex- 
quisite drapery. The high bailiff, magnificently robed, 
took, the reins in hand to lead the horse under a purple 
velvet pall bordered with gold. The magistrates walked 
on either side; the aldermen of the city, richly clad, car- 
ried their staves of office in the august procession, whiuh 
concluded with a military escort, standard-bearers, eto., 
and proceeded to the Cathedral, where it was met by the 
dean, holding a Cross. As the company entered the sacred 
edifice, the Te Deum was en toned by a band of music." 

In 1886 a supreme court, exactly similar to, and inde- 
pendent of, that of Manila, was established in the city of 
Cebu. The question of precedence in official acts having 
been soon after disputed between the president of the court 
and the brigadier-governor of Visayas, it was decided in 
favor of the latter, on appeal to the governor-general. In 
the meantime, the advisability of abolishing the supreme 
court of Cebu was debated by the public. 

Consequent on the union of the crowns of Portugal 
and Spain (1581 to 1640), the feuds, as between nations, 
diplomatically subsided, although the individual antag- 
onism was as rife as ever. 

Spanish and Portuguese interests in the Moluccas, as 
elsewhere, were thenceforth officially mutual. In the Mo- 
luccas group, the old contests between the then rival king- 



THE PHILIPPINES. 281 

doms had estranged the natives from their forced alli- 
ances. Anti-Portuguese and Philo-Portuguese parties had 
sprung up among the petty sovereignties, but the Portu- 
guese fort and factory established in Ternate Island were 
held for many years, despite all contentions. But another 
rivalry, as formidable and more detrimental than that of 
the Portuguese in days gone by, now menaced Spanish 
ascendency. 

From the close of the sixteenth century up to the year 
of the "Family Compact" wars (1763), Holland and Spain 
were relentless foes. To recount the numerous combats 
between their respective fleets during this period would 
itself require a volume. It will suffice here to show the 
bearing of these political conflicts upon the concerns of 
the Philippine colony. The Treaty of Antwerp, which 
was wrung from the Spaniards in 1609, twenty-eight 
years after the union of Spain and Portugal, broke the 
scourge of their tyranny, while it failed to assuage the 
mutual antipathy. One of the consequences of the "Wars 
of the Flanders," which terminated with this treaty, was 
that the Dutch were obliged to seek in the Far East the 
merchandise which had hitherto been supplied to them 
from the Peninsula. The short-sighted policy of the 
Spaniards in closing to the Dutch the Portuguese mar- 
kets, which were now theirs, brought upon themselves 
the destruction of the monopolies which they had gained 
by the union. The Dutch were now free, and their old 
tyrant's policy induced them to independently establish 
their own trading headquarters in the Moluccas Islands, 
whence they could obtain directly the produce forbidden 
to them in the home ports. Hence, from those islands. 



282 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

the ships of a powerful Netherlands Trading Company 
sallied forth from time to time to meet the Spanish gal- 
leons from Mexico with silver and manufactured goods. 

Previous to this, and during the Wars of the Flanders, 
Dutch corsairs hovered about the waters of the Moluccas, 
to take reprisals from the Spaniards. These encounters 
frequently took place at the eastern entrance of the San 
Bernadino Straits, where the Dutch were accustomed to 
hove-to in anticipation of the arrival of their prizes. 

In this manner, constantly roving about the Philippine 
waters, they enriched themselves at the expense of their 
detested adversary, and, in a small degree, avenged them- 
selves of the bloodshed and oppression which for over sixty 
years had desolated the Low Countries. 

The Philippine colony lost immense sums in the seizure 
of its galleons from Mexico, upon which it almost entirely 
depended for subsistence. Being a dependency of New 
Spain, its whole intercourse with the civilized world, its 
supplies of troops and European manufactured articles, 
were contingent upon the safe arrival of the galleons. 
Also the dollars with which they annually purchased car- 
goes from the Chinese for the galleons came from Mexico. 

Consequently, the Dutch usually took the aggressive in 
these sea -battles, although they were not always victori- 
ous. When there were no ships to meet, they bombarded 
the ports where others were being built. The Spaniards, 
on their part, from time to time fitted out vessels to run 
down to the Moluccas Islands to attack the enemy in his 
own waters. 

During the governorship of Gomea Perez Dasmarlnas 
(1690-1693), the native king of Siao Island — one of the 



THE PHILIPPINES. 283 

Moluccas group — came to Manila to offer homage and vas- 
salage to the representative of the King of Spain and 
Portugal, in return for protection against the incursions 
of the Dutch and the raids of the Ternate natives. Das- 
marinas received him and the Spanish priests who accom- 
panied him with affability, and, being satisfied with his 
credentials, he prepared a large expedition to go to the 
Moluccas to set matters in order. The fleet was com- 
posed of several frigates, one ship, six galleys and one 
hundred small vessels, all well armed. The fighting men 
numbered one hundred Spaniards, four hundred Pampanga 
and Tagalog arquebusiers, one thousand Visayas archers 
and lancers, besides one hundred Chinese to row the gal- 
leys. This expedition, which was calculated to be amply 
sufficient to subdue all the Moluccas, sailed from Cavite 
on the 6th of October, 1593. The sailing ships having 
got far ahead of the galleys, they hove-to off Punta de 
Azufre (N. of Maricaban Island) to wait for them. The 
galleys arrived; and the next day they were able to start 
again in company. Meanwhile a conspiracy was formed 
by the Chinese galleymen to murder all the Spaniards. 
Assuming these Chinese to be volunteers, their action 
would appear most wanton and base. If, however, as 
is most probable, they were pressed into this military 
service to foreigners, it seems cuite natural that, being 
forced to bloodshed without alternative, they should first 
fight for their own liberty. 

All but the Chinese were asleep, and they fell upon 
the Spaniards in a body. Eighteen of the troops and 
four slaves escaped by jumping into the sea. The gov- 
ernor was sleeping in his cabin, but awoke on hearing 



284 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

the noise. He supposed the ship had grounded, and was 
coming up the companion en deshabille, when a China- 
man cleaved his head with a cutlass. The governor 
reached his state-room, and taking his missal and the 
Image of the Virgin in his hand, he died in six hours. 
The Chinese did not venture below, where the priests and 
armed soldiers were hidden. They cleared the decks of 
all their opponents, made fast the hatches and gangways, 
and waited three days, when, after putting ashore those 
who were still alive, they escaped to Cochin-China, where 
the king and mandarins seized the vessel and all she car- 
ried. On board were found twelve thousand dollars in 
coin, some silver, and jewels belonging to the governor 
and his suite. 

Thus the expedition was brought to an untimely end. 
The King of Siao, and the missionaries accompanying 
him, had started in advance for Otong (Panay Island) 
to wait for the governor, and there they received the 
news of the disaster. 

Among the most notable of the successful expeditions 
of the Spaniards was that of Pedro Bravo de Acuna, in 
1606, which consisted of nineteen frigates, nine galleys 
and eight small craft, carrying a total of about two thou- 
sand men and provisions for a prolonged struggle. The 
result was, that they subdued a petty sultan friendly to 
the Dutch, and established a fortress on his island. 

About the year 1607, the supreme court (the gover- 
norship being vacant from 1606 to 1608), hearing that 
a Dutch vessel was hovering off Ternate, sent a ship 
against it, commanded by Pedro de Heredia. A com- 
bat ensued. The Dutch commander was taken prisoner 



THE PHILIPPINES, 285 

with several of his men, and lodged in the fort at Ter- 
nate, but was ransomed on payment of fifty thousand 
dollars to the Spanish commander. Heredia returned 
joyfully to Manila, where, much to his surprise, he was 
prosecuted by the supreme court for exceeding his in- 
structions, and expired of melancholy. The ransomed 
Dutch leader was making his way back to his head- 
quarters in a small ship, peacefully, and without hostil- 
izing the Spaniards in any way, when the supreme court 
treacherously sent a galley and a frigate after him to 
make him prisoner a second time. Overwhelmed by * 
numbers and arms, and little expecting such perfidious 
conduct of the Spaniards, he was at once arrested and 
brought to Manila. The Dutch returned twenty -two 
Spanish prisoners of war to Manila to ransom him; but 
while these were retained, the Dutch commander was, 
nevertheless, imprisoned for life. 

Some years afterward, a Dutch squadron anchored off 
the south point of Bataan Province, not far from Punta 
Marivelez, at the entrance to Manila Bay. Juan de Silva, 
the governor (from 1609 to 1616), was in great straits. 
Several ships had been lost by storms, others were away, 
and there was no adequate floating armament with which 
to meet the enemy. However, the Dutch lay- to for five 
or six months, waiting to seize the Chinese and Japanese 
traders' goods on their way to the Manila^market. They 
secured immense booty, and were in no hurry to open 
hostilities. This delay gave Silva time to prepare vessels 
to attack the foe. In the interval, he dreamed that Saint 
Mark had offered to help him defeat the Dutch. On 
awaking, he called a priest, whom he consulted about 



286 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

the dream, and they agreed that the nocturnal vision 
was a sign from Heaven denoting a victory. The priest 
went (from Cavite) to Manila to procure a relic of this 
glorious intercessor, and returned with his portrait to the 
governor, who adored it. In haste the ships and arma- 
ment were prepared. On Saint Mark's day, therefore, 
the Spaniards sallied forth from Cavite with six ships, 
carrying seventy guns, and two galleys and two launches 
also well armed, besides a number of small light vessels, 
to assist in the formation of line of battle. 

All the European fighting men in Manila and Cavite 
embarked — over one thousand Spaniards — the flower of the 
colony, together with a large force of natives, who were 
taught to believe that the Dutch were infidels. On the 
issue of this day's events perchance depended the posses- 
sion of the colony. Manila and Cavite were garrisoned by 
volunteers. Orations were offered in the churches. The 
Miraculous Image of Our Lady of the Guide was taken 
in procession from the Hermit, and exposed to public view 
in the Cathedral. The saints of the different churches 
and sanctuaries were adored and exhibited daily. The 
governor himself took the supreme command, and dis- 
pelled all wavering doubt in his subordinates by proclaim- 
ing Saint Mark's promise of intercession. On his ship he 
hoisted the royal standard, on which was embroidered 
the Image of the Holy Virgin, with the motto: "Mostrate 
esse Matrem," and over a beautifully calm sea he led the 
way to battle. 

A shot from the Spanish heavy artillery opened the 
bloody combat. The Dutch were completely vanquished, 
after a fierce struggle which lasted six hours. Their 



HISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED. 289 

in his twofold capacity of trader and missionary. The for- 
eigner as a trader lyeyas wished to retain at his ports, in 
order that he himself might enjoy the benefits of trade, and 
keep himself acquainted with what was going on in the world 
around him. The foreigners as proselytizing missionaries 
bringing professions of peace and goodwill, but who seemed 
to be in reality preachers of sedition and organizers of rebel- 
lion, were not to be tolerated; and he came to the conclusion 
that if any real peace was to be obtained for the country, it 
must be at the expense of the former. "Perish trade," he 
said, "that my country may have the greater blessing of 
peace." With the view of carrying out his plans, another 
edict was, in the year 1616, promulgated against the Roman 
Catholic religion, about which time the evidence of these 
fathers would lead to the belief that, "from Taikosama'a 
death, 1698, to the year 1614, the fathers of the Society bap- 
tized upward of 104,000 ; and what is more, in the three first 
years of the persecution, when the very pillars themselvead 
began to shake, they converted 15,000 more. By this time 
the Jesuits had traversed the whole empire, and claimed 
converts, not only in Yedo, but in Oshiu (or Mootz) and 
Dewa to the extreme north. The province of Oshiu is sep- 
arated from Dewa by a long chain of high mountains all 
covered with snow, and here it was that the poor exiled 
Christians lived, destitute of all human assistance. One of 
the Jesuits, moved with compassion at their misfortime, took 
a journey into that country, climbing up the hills over hide- 
ous precipices in deep snow. He visited privately the Chris- 
tians that wrought in the mines, and confessed and com- 
municated them. The same he did at the hospital of lepers, 
which happened to be at that time full of Christians." This 
was, as we are told, done quietly, and by the assistance of 
converts; but, as heretofore, while some of the different 
orders of the Roman Church were disposed to keep quiet 
till better times should dawn, and carry on their ministra- 
tions in secret, as it were, others were still inclined to show 
a zeal without knowledge, and thus kept up the ardor of 

1% 



290 HISTORY OF JAPAN, 

their enemies about the court. During the year 1626 Midzu 
no and Take naka were sent down to Nagasaki to examine 
into and report upon the state of the Christian rehgion; and 
the government, knowing that the Cross was the symbol of 
the faith, and an object of the highest reverence among the 
Christians, resolved to make the question of such reverence 
the shibboleth or test of the individual strength of faith. In 
1636 orders were issued by government that every one in 
Nagasaki was to assemble each month for the purpose of 
standing upon, with the object of desecrating, a copper *'ita,'* 
or plate, with an engraven representation of the Christian 
criminal God — i.e., of our Saviour. Tbis order was strictly 
carried out at Nagasaki, while another such plate was (and 
is) kept at Osaka for the purpose of testing suspected per- 
sons. This act of desecration is known as *'Yayboomi," and 
was carried out till the recent conclusion of treaties with 
Christian nations. 

This last device of the government appears to have been 
successful in separating the Christian element from the 
heathen ; but it terminated in a way which was, perhaps, 
not expected by the authorities; namely, in driving the poor 
Christians of the island of Kiusiu to band together, and ulti- 
mately in desperation to take up arms in their own defense. 
Had the Christians resorted to this ultima ratio at first, 
instead of leaving it as the last card -they had to play, the 
result of the game might have been different from what it 
turned out to be. Refusing to perform such an act of irrev- 
erence and desecration, they were obliged to fly to the hills 
and band together for the common object of protection. The 
numbers increased until they amounted to upward of 40,000 
men. The most prominent leader among them appears to 
have been Massida shiro, fourth son of Jimbe, in Kobemura, 
in Hizen province; and he was assisted by two brothers, 
Oyano Kozayaymon and O. Kemmootz. These are prob- 
ably the two brothers to whom Tavernier, the great East 
ern traveler, alludes in an appendix to his work, when he 
mentions, on the authority of one Father Barr, who seems 



mSTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED. 291 

to have been in Japan at the time, that ''none were more 
zealous or faithful to the Christians than the two lords of 
Ximo, Francis and Charles, sons of the lord of Buzen." 

The Roman Catholics who had been recently forced out 
of the city of ITagasaki and the town adjacent gathered 
themselves together under the command of Ma^ida, and 
resolved to make a final stand in the island of Amacusa, 
at that time belonging to Terasawa, formerly governor of 
ITagasaM, and under the charge of his retainer Miako tobe. 
The first move of this Christian army was to seize the cas- 
tle of Tomioka. This put them in possession of the island, 
after which the army crossed over to occupy the cas4te 
of Simabara, situated about twenty miles from Kagaaaki^ 
and meditated an attack upon that town. The movemeniB 
of both parties seem to have been slow, as, after a delay of 
twelve months, the government issued orders to the Daimios 
of the island of Kiusiu to collect, equip and send forward aa 
army xmder the command of Itakura Suwo no kami to besiege 
the castle and town of Simabara. Itakura, probably acting^ 
upon the advice of his augurs, the Buddhist priesthood, at* 
tacked the city upon the first day of the year, and was killed 
in the attempt, when the command devolved upon Matzdaiia 
Idzu no kami, with Toda san mong and Matzdaira Sin saburo. 
After sustaining a siege of two months, and repelling several 
attacks, the Christians were at last overcome and the castle 
was taken. The whole of the persons found in the city- 
men, women, and children — were massacred, to the number 
of 31,000. The three leaders were taken, together with a 
woman, beheaded, and the heads put up on the gate of the 
Dutch factor's house at Hirado. After the affair was over, 
the native accounts say that **the guns from Nagasaki were 
of great use, therefore he presented money." The factor at 
the time appears to have been named Koekkebekker, and the 
statement that money was presented implies in the native 
account that it was given to the Dutch for the assistance 
derived from their cannon, which are said to have fired from 
a ship and a battery on shore 426 balls. A great deal has 



292 HISTORY OF JAPAN. 

been made of this against the Dutch, as using their influ- 
ence to extirpate Christianity from the empire ; but when 
the guns were demanded by the Japanese, the Dutch factor 
was powerless to refuse. 

A few native vessels were at this time permitted to trade 
with China, Hainan, Formosa, and Tonquin; and there 
must have been a considerable number of Japanese collected 
in Macao and its neighborhood, some probably traders or 
runaway sailors, others as refugees on account of religion, 
or as being educated for the priesthood. Up to a recent 
period the remains of a large building with a garden-wall 
were visible on the Lappa, opposite Macao, which was 
known to the Chinese as the "Yut pone lao," or Japanese 
hall, now better known as the "Fan kwei lao," or hall of 
the outer devils. 

According to native history, in the year 1640 some of the 
**Jashiu mong" (one of the names by which the Koman 
Catholic sect was known in Japan) came to Kagosima in 
Satsuma. Orders were given to the inhabitants not to speak 
to and not to listen to these foreigners. Two officers, Kan- 
gatsume from Miako and Baba saburo from Nagasaki, were 
ordered to investigate and communicate the result. They 
found that "there were in one ship seventy-three men of this 
sect; of this number sixty were beheaded, and the remainder 
were sent to the islands. ' ' This is the way in which native 
authors put the arrival and treatment of four Portuguese 
gentlemen who were sent as embassadors to Japan from 
Macao in order to endeavor if possible by a last stroke to 
reopen the trade which had been lost. The four gentle- 
men, with their suite and the crews of the vessels to the 
number of sixty men, were beheaded at Nagasaki, while 
the remaining thirteen were sent back to Macao to inform 
the authorities there of the treatment they had received. 
In the Cathedral of Macao may be seen a painting of the 
execution of these embassadors. 

Deeply regretting the loss of the trade of Japan, and 
nothing daunted by the fate of these envoys, King John, 



HISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED, 298 

upon ascending the throne of Portugal after the separation 
of the kingdom from the dominion of Spain, thought it a 
good opportunity to attempt to reopen negotiations; and 
with this view Don Gk>nzalo de Sequeyra was dispatched 
with two vessels and numerous presents to pave the way. 
He was, though more fortimate, not more successful than 
those envoys sent from Macao. By the accounts of native 
historians, *'two black ships came to the island of Iwoga 
sima, south of Satsuma. They said they were all Nanbang 
men, and that there was not one Boman Catholic [priest?] 
among them. The captain said, *My country's king is now 
changed. I have a dispatch from the new king, and I wish 
it to be forwarded as soon as convenient to Yedo.' " Inoo- 
yay and Yamagaki were sent from Yedo to make inquiries. 
They demanded that the powder and guns should first of all 
be given up, and then they would hear what the envoys had 
to say. The captain replied, " * Trading is a matter which 
concerns all countries. If Japan does not choose to trade 
with us, that is her affair, but the guns and powder cannot 
be given up.' Thereupon all the Daimios in the island of 
Kiusiu were ordered to hold themselves in readiness with 
men and boats. The name of ti^e envoy was Koni sa aru," 
etc., in which an attempt was made to write his name in 
Japanese sounds. He said he was a relative of the King of 
Portugal. Answer was sent down from Yedo to the effect 
that these ships had committed a serious offense, but that 
they should be dealt leniently with, and were to be ordered 
to leave the shores and not to return. After staying in all 
forty-three days, the two vessels departed. They had two 
captains and 400 men. The one was 156 feet long by 42 
broad; the other was 144 feet long by 36 broad. Each ves- 
sel had 20 large guns. After this visit orders were given to 
the Kiusiu Daimios to have always in readiness a force of 
66,000 men and 997 guard-boats for the protection of the 
coasts. In the year 1666 another edict was issued against 
the Roman Catholics, so that it would appear that some 
sparks of the faith were still lingering here and there. 



894 HISTORY OF JAPAN. 

which the government feared might at a moment be 
fanned into flame. 

In the year 1709, Abbe Sidotti, an Italian priest of good 
family, determined to devote himself to the cause, and to 
make another attempt to regain Japan to the Church of 
Home. With difficulty he found a captain of a vessel trad- 
ing at Manila, who agreed to put him ashore on some point 
of the coast, and there to leave him to his own resources. 
When off the coast of Satsuma a boat was lowered, and the 
abbe, with a few small coins in his pocket, was put on shore. 
The boat returned, and the ship sailed away. After a long 
interval, a report reached the Dutch factory, through Chi- 
nese, that the abbe had been taken and immured between 
two walls, and allowed to perish of hunger. But this has 
lately been disproved by the discovery of a full account of 
his arrest and examination, and detention about Yedo until 
iiis death, which does not appear to have taken place for 
many years. This was the last effort made by the Church 
of Rome to regain the footing she had lost. 

Hidetada, the son and successor of lyeyas, would seem 
not to have possessed the talents or firmness of his father, 
but he had the advantage of his father's advice and assist- 
ance during the greater part of his rule. His son, lyaymitz, 
when he was capable of ruling, and had come to the office 
of Shiogoon, found that the spirit of the Daimios had been 
softened by the long peace. The yoke of the Tokungawa 
family did not gall their necks, and they preferred peace 
and ease in the assured possession of their estates, to the 
risk and violence of wars and constant disturbance in the 
empire. lyaymitz on more than one occasion visited the Em- 
peror in Miako with great pomp, but a real or suspected 
attempt to assassinate him seems to have put a stop to these 
visits. 

The year 1634 is given as the date at which the custom 
of the Daimios visiting Yedo on alternate years commenced. 
The Daimios coming to Yedo and returning from it are 
spoken of as Sankin and Kotai. The custom seems to have 



HISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED. 295 

been long in use in Miako, but in a more temporary way, 
and simply as being a duty of each lord to visit and pay his 
respects at the imperial court once a year when they offered 
presents. This visit was by lyeyas transferred to his court 
at Yedo and Soonpu ; but it appears to have fallen into des- 
uetude and irregularity during the life of Hidetada. But 
lyaymitz, who was an able, proud, and precise ruler, found 
that his father had not been much respected by the Daimios, 
who still retained the recollection of the wars and prowess 
of lyeyas; but in course of time these men were succeeded 
by their sons, who were of a more effeminate spirit, and had 
no such associations. lyaymitz, taking advantage of this 
change, invited all the Daimios to visit him in Yedo, when 
he proposed rules for their visiting and residing at his court, 
to which they all agreed, swearing fealty, and signing the 
deed each with his own blood drawn from above the nail of 
the finger. A hall had been built on the Goteng yama, a 
rising-ground near Yedo, in which the Shiogoon was to meet 
the Daimios on their arrival ; but under lyaymitz the custom 
was discontinued and the ground made public. 

During the same year, the "Court of Deliberation," the 
Hio jo sho, was established in Yedo, with the view at the 
outset of investigating charges brought against Daimios. 
The Mayassu hako, or box for complaints, now standing 
in front of the Hio jo sho, was not placed there till the year 
1721. 

One Shiogoon after another succeeded to the throne, not 
always without suspicion of unfair means being used to 
hasten the conclusion of the reign. It is generally believed 
that Tsuna yoshi was killed by his wife when he was on the 
eve of proclaiming the son of Yanangi sawa, one of his min- 
isters, his successor. The heir was lyay nobuko, the son of 
the eldest son of lyaymitz, the father, when a young man, 
having been sent to the castle of Kof oo under arrest on ac- 
count of irregularity of conduct. In the year 1716, on the 
death of the infant Shiogoon, lyay tsoongu, a diflSculty oc- 
curred as to the succession, when Yoshi mone, who was of 



296 HISTORY OF JAPAN. 

the royal house of Kii shiu, was selected by the Kokushu, 
on the recommendation of Eeyee kamong no kami, then 
Regent. Having abdicated in 1745, he died in 1751, and is 
reputed as one of the ablest and wisest of the Shiogoons of 
the dynasty. The next Shiogoon was lyay hige ; and dur- 
ing the rule of his successor, lyay haru, about 1765, a com- 
mon foot-soldier, Tanuma, rose to be chief minister, a posi- 
tion and power which he used not only to gratify his own 
evil propensities, but to disseminate the same corruption 
over the empire. Preventing all com m unications with the 
Shiogoon, he did what was right in his own eyes ; forbade 
all persons to study; changed the laws; and devoted himself 
and the empire to debauchery. He was made a Daimio, and 
placed at the head of the Cabinet. A conspiracy formed 
against him failed, and the principal conspirators were be- 
headed ; but he was at length put down by Matzdaira Etsjiu 
no kami, who published at this time the *'Tenka hatto, TYiiTrV a 
hatto," or three days' proclamation over the empire. 

The Japanese are proud of and delight in the beautiful 
scenery of their country; and every one who has opportu- 
nity, including nearly all the inhabitants, male and female, 
makes a walking tour at some period of his life over the 
country, visiting the more remarkable temples, which are 
generally placed in favorable sites amid woods, and sur- 
roimded by fine forest-trees, the immediate precincts being 
kept with the most scrupulous care and nicety of gardening. 
Nowhere are the temples more magnificent or the scenery 
finer than about Miako ; and it had been for long the custom 
for the Emperor to go out and visit some one of the temples 
in the neighborhood of Miako, and offer worship. In the 
year 1722 a day was set apart in spring, and again in 
autumn, on which the whole court should annually go out 
on a sort of gigantic picnic — the Emperor drawn in a car 
by oxen, and accompanied by all the Koongays — when *.hey 
visit some of the temples most renowned for their sanctity 
or for the beauty of the grounds. This procession is called 
Miyuki or Gokowo. There are two gardens adjoining the 



HISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED. 297 

palace in Miako, Shoongakuji and Katsura, which are said 
to be most exquisitely laid out and kept in beautiful order. 
The gardeners who have the charge of these gardens belong 
to a class or sect known as Gayra, a people who live apart 
by themselves in a few villages in the neighborhood of the 
capital. They are said to have kept themselves apart in 
customs and religion for many generations. In religion, 
they say there is but one God, and that all men below the 
Emperor are equal. They, as Quakers with us, will not use 
terms of respect to other men, such as "kudasare," or call 
men by titles, as "sama," similar to ''esquire"; saying that 
they only adhere to old customs in so doing. They are 
themselves respected as being of old and pure descent, and 
their children are often selected by Koongays for adoption. 
They principally follow the occupation of gardeners, or that 
of breeders of horses. 

In the year 1639, the Portuguese and Spaniards having 
been expelled, and the Dutch factory alone left at Hirado, 
the commissioner was ordered to remove his people and 
offices to the small factory on Desima, 'Hhe Outer Island," 
at the head of the inlet of Nagasaki, and trade was prohib- 
ited at all other places in Japan, and to any other nation, 
with the exception of the Chinese. 

In connection with the Dutch and their position on these 
seas, the pirate commonly known as Coxinga is worthy of 
notice. Koku seng ya, as he is known in Japanese history, 
was the son of a Chinese, Ching tsing lung (Tayshi rio in 
Japanese), by a Japanese woman. The father was for many 
years, as pirate and admiral, the terror of the Chinese seas. 
His son succeeded him in his former capacity, and reduced 
the coasts of China to such a state of terror and devasta- 
tion, that an order was given, as a desperate remedy, that 
every person should remove into the interior to a distance of 
twelve miles from the shore, leaving the cities to decay and 
the fields to waste. In 1647 Coxinga went over to Japan, 
and offered his services to, or asked the assistance of, the 
government in an attack he meditated upon China; but hi« 



298 HISTORY OF JAPAN. 

application was refused. He seems to have again applied to 
the government in 1658, when he turned his attention to the 
island of Formosa. A large number of Japanese converts 
had fled to this island, and the Dutch had built one or two 
forts with the view of protecting a trade which they hoped 
might grow up with China. In 1662 Coxinga attacked and 
captured the fort Zelandia, putting to death nearly all the 
Dutch soldiers, missionaries, and their wives and famihes. 
Only a few men and some of the young women were not 
killed. A curious but melancholy sigh is wafted over from 
this long-forgotten remnant of Dutch Christianity and civili- 
zation in a letter which was brought to Japan about the year 
1711 by the captain of an English vessel who had touched at 
Formosa on his way out ; and as the letter comes through a 
Japanese channel, there is no reason to doubt its authentic- 
ity. The captain, in answer to interrogations, says, "There 
is no war in Tonay [Formosa] now, and we have no trade 
there. The Dutch head man asked me to give the following 
letter to the Dutch commissioners in Nagasaki: 'Please ask 
Japan to help us; we are now shut up as in a prison, and 
every day we weep. The names of the Dutch in Tonay are 
[here the names are given in Japanese]. I hear that this 
English vessel is going hence to Japan; therefore we take 
the opportunity of sending this letter to you. The Tonay 
country was seized many years ago; but we are still alive, 
but we are in a most miserable state. Please help us to 
return to our country. We pray you to speak to the Kogee 
[Kubosama]. 

** 'Signed by the head man Yohang Hoorohooro, and 
two others. 

*' 'There are ten women and several children here.' " 
Nicolas Verburgh seems to have been the name of the 
officer in command of the fort at the time of its capture in 
1662, and the signature, as written by a Japanese, closely 
corresponds to the pronunciation of the name, and Yohang 
may have been his son John. From the tenor of the letter 
it seems hardly possible to doubt but that these were some 



HISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED. 299 

of the survivors of the Dutch captured in 1662, and if so, it 
is curious to have such a fact coming to light through Japa- 
nese informants, and melancholy to think of such a tedious 
captivity lightened up after fifty years by the hope of once 
more revisiting their home, and being redeemed from their 
never-ending misery. 

The name of this English ship is not given, but native 
history tells us that the captain brought with him an exact 
copy of the treaty or letter signed by lyeyas, traced upon 
paper, and expressed a wish to communicate with the Shio- 
goon at Yedo. A Dutch interpreter was sent to see if there 
were any Portuguese on board. The guns and muskets 
were taken ashore. There were eighty-four of a crew on 
board. The captain's name was Sayemon Terohoo (Simon 
Drew?). The ship was 114 feet long by 27 broad. Then 
follows a list of articles on board — ammunition, which was 
taken charge of by the Japanese : Gunpowder, 35 tubs; balls, 
660; leaden bullets, 2 tubs; iron bullets, 1 tub; small stone 
bullets, 8 tubs; matchlocks, 47; flint muskets, 23; spears, 
24; swords, 339. 

There were on board, as presents for the Shiogoon, '*one 
fine EngHsh musket, double-barreled, 3 feet 3 inches in 
length; four muskets with very intricate and finely-made 
locks, besides eight others which cannot be used, but are 
very well made; and four molds for making balls." 

The cargo consisted of cotton, woolen and cotton cloth, 
furs, fragrant wood, chintz, scented water, quicksilver, look- 
ing glasses, tin, silk, crape, etc. The captain was interrogated 
as to his religion, as to the Portuguese, and as to a change 
he had made in the national flag which he sailed under, 
which he explained by saying that he was told the Japanese 
did not like the cross. 

The Dutch had carried on their trade at the island of 
Hirado, where an extensive land-locked bay is pointed out 
as the harbor. They were ordered in 1639 to leave that 
port, and in future to resort to Nagasaki, where a small 
island, which was afterward connected by a bridge with the 



900 HISTORY OF JAPAN. 

town, was appointed them as a place of residence and for 
trade, being about the same size as the factories at Canton 
occupied by foreigners till 1856. 

Several attempts were made by other nations, at long 
intervals, to reopen a trade with the country; but it was 
thought by the Dutch to be their interest to oppose any 
such competition, and the Japanese themselves dreaded, 
with good cause, any renewal of the former state of things. 

The national annals during the period which elapsed be- 
tween the era of lyeyas and the reopening of the coimtry 
advert to a number of occurrences of temporary and local 
importance only. The comparatively trivial nature of these 
tends to bring out into relief the continued quiet and rest 
which the country has enjoyed under the form of govern- 
ment established by lyeyas, and after all complications aris- 
ing from dealings with other nations were forcibly put an 
end to by the expulsion of foreigners. 

The Daimio Fkushima Massanori was banished in 1619 
to the island of Hatchi jo for a series of cruelties practiced 
upon his family, his servants, and his people, which show 
that he was deranged; and his extensive territories, occupy- 
ing three provinces, were confiscated. 

In 1621 the Emperor married the daughter of the Shio- 
goon. 

The temple of To yay zan was built in Yedo for the occu- 
pation of the high-priest, who is alluded to in the laws of 
lyeyas as being appointed to fill that position as a near rela- 
tive of the Emperor, and one whom the Shiogoon may place 
on the throne in case of rebels siding with the Emperor in 
opposition to the Shiogoon. He is the most illustrious per- 
sonage in Yedo. The grounds are very beautiful, and 
formerly belonged to the family of Todo. 

In the year 1631, about the month of November, it is 
rurious to observe that the annals take notice of a prodig- 
ious number of ironstones having fallen from heaven, show- 
ing that the meteoric orbit has been crossing that of the 
earth as visibly two hundred years ago as it does now. 



HISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED, 301 

This occurrence probably took place during the day, as at 
other times these meteors are spoken of as falling stars. 

The aqueduct by which water is led from the Tainan- 
gawa to Yedo, and thence discharged into the castle and 
town by wooden pipes, was constructed in 1663. Proposals 
have been made at different times to substitute iron pipes, 
but the wooden ones still remain — ^a cause of constant ex» 
pense to the government. 

The burning of the palace at Miako, or of that at Yedo, 
is one of the most common occurrences in these annals. 
Titsingh gives a vivid description of a conflagration which 
occurred in 1788 in Miako, during which the attendants of 
the Emperor killed more than a thousand persons before he 
could be carried out of danger. 

The government in Japan reserves the privilege of sell- 
ing weights and scales guaranteed by mark and certified as 
correct. The weights as now used were settled in 1663. 

In 1666 a new edict was issued against the Eoman Oath* 
olic religion; and in 1668 an order was promulgated pro- 
hibiting any new Buddhist temples being erected. In all 
probability the Buddhist priesthood had been exalted by 
their victory over the Roman priesthood, and had ^ain 
acquired so much power as to be once more threatening to 
disturb the equilibrium of the state. The zeal of individuals 
had perhaps been again endowing new and enriching old 
establishments, actuated by feelings with which the state 
powers did not wish to sympathize. Only four years before 
this edict, the enormous copper idol of Buddha at Miako had 
been melted down and coined into copper "cash," and a 
wooden figure was substituted. If it be true, as is asserted, 
that it was three or four times the size of the figure of Dai 
boods, near Kamakura (at present existing in copper, and 
upward of forty-five feet in height), H must have been of 
considerable value in coin. 

This edict against the erection of UQW temples is still in 
force in Japan, and while it is aided by a growing want of 
seal in the hearts of the people with a contempt for the 



803 HISTORY OF JAPAN. 

priesthood, it may be broken through by the permission 
given to repair, or restore, or enlarge any temple already 
existing, however small it may be; and as a temple or 
shrine is standing upon nearly every knoll or eminence in 
Japan, there can be no difficulty, were the funds forthcom- 
ing, of raising such edifices as were raised of old by the zeal 
of fervent worshipers. 

The Buddhist priesthood in 1720, by a great religious 
festival all over the empire, commemorated the eleventh 
centenary of the establishment of Buddhism. 

The Japanese claim the discovery and settlement of the 
Bonin or Monin Islands in the year 1683. The name means 
*'no men," or uninhabited. Attempts were made to colo- 
nize the islands, but they seem to have failed; and some 
English and Americans, with Sandwich Islanders, male and 
female, succeeded them. But in 1862 the Japanese govern- 
ment fitted out a vessel and carried away all these adven- 
turers, bringing them to Yokohama, and it seems to find 
the islands a convenient distance to which they can send 
vessels to train officers and men. 

A work was commenced in 1786 which was expected to 
have proved of great advantage to Yedo. This was the cut- 
ting of a canal, and thereby joining several already existing 
channels, by which a through communication would have 
been opened up between Yedo, or the Bay of Yedo, and the 
pacific Ocean on the east coast. The part of the province 
of Simosa between Yedo and the east coast is very low land, 
and it is generally believed that at one time the sea cut off 
the three provinces of Simosa, Kadsusa, and Awa, which 
then constituted a separate island; and that the detritus 
brought down, after a course of nearly two hundred miles, 
by the largest river in Japan, the Tonay, has filled up with 
alluvium the sea channel, leaving now only the passage for 
the fresh water of tLie river. In the course of the filling up, 
however, a large lake was left, the Een bang numa. About 
twenty miles above Yedo, the Tonay, coming down as one 
fiver from the Tonay district, divides into two. The one 



BISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED. 30S 

branch, receiving affluents from Hitatsi and the northern 
provinces, runs due east as the Bando taro, or *' eldest son 
of Bando," and enters the sea between Choshi and Itaku on 
the east coast. The other branch, running south, enters the 
sea to the east of the city of Yedo. The Okawa, or Great 
River, runs parallel with the Tonay, and passes through 
Yedo spanned by five bridges. Between the Okawa and 
Tonay, and running parallel to, and communicating by 
canals with both, is the ITakagawa or Middle River. By 
these cross canal communications the passage may be made 
from Yedo to the Pacific on the east, or to the northern 
provinces by running up to Seki Yado, where the bifurca- 
tion takes place. It was proposed to deepen the lake, and 
cut through a passage from it into the Bay of Yedo. — The 
lower part of Yedo is so low that it is liable to be over- 
flowed should the Tonay rise above its banks. To avert this 
danger, a large and important embankment, the Gongen do, 
has been made at Koori hashi. Should this give way, the 
whole of the lower parts of Yedo would be submerged, as 
happened, it is said, in 1844. 

The town of Sakura first started the project, and com- 
menced a canal, but did not finish the work. The Shiogoon, 
seeing the advantages of the proposed cut, ordered the Dai- 
mios to cut the remainder of this canal (of about fourteen 
miles in length), each cutting as his share about 360 feet. 
The work, which was immediately commenced, was in six 
months half completed, when orders were given to cease 
working at it. In 1843 the work was recommenced by 
orders of government, but when it was within three thou- 
sand yards of being finished it was again stopped, and il 
continues in that position to this day. 

The river and canal communications in Japan are more 
ramified than the mountainous natture of the country would 
lead one to expect. It is said that Yedo might, by short 
canals, be put into water relations with Mito on the east 
coast and 19'egata on the north, as boats can go up the Tonay 
to Shimidzu, within eight miles of the navigable part of the 



804 HISTORY OF JAPAN, 

Negata waters; while Miako might be joined by water to 
Tsurunga on the north and Owarri on the south. By pri- 
vate enterprise, in the year 1832, the Yodo ngawa between 
Miako and Osaka was deepened and improved by the re- 
moval of some rocks. It is said that the Katsura gawa, or 
Hozu kawa, now a large affluent of the Yodo gawa, formerly 
ran to the north through the province of Wakasa ; but a pri- 
vate individual, Yodo yo, cut a channel by which this river 
now flows southward into the Osaka River. His family is 
permitted to levy tolls upon the new channel. 

The occurrence of fearful convulsions of nature is one of 
the most remarkable circumstances in these annals; and it 
may be presumed that only the most severe are noticed. 
But recent observations go to show that almost every day 
there is an observable motion of the earth at Yokohama 
from subterranean causes. The native accounts of these, 
with drawings, give an appalling idea of the suddenness 
and the severity of earthquakes. In the year 1707 a very 
severe earthquake shook the whole of the southern part of 
the island of Mppon, and simultaneously from the side of 
the mountain Fusiyama [Fusi — literally "not two," or none 
such] issued an eruption of volcanic matter. This eruption 
continued for fifteen days ; and at Yedo, a distance of sev- 
enty miles, dust fell to the depth of two feet. Fusiyama 
had not given any appearance of volcanic action for centu- 
ries. The projection on the smooth outline of the hill on 
the northwestern side marks the place where this action took 
place, and is known as Ho yay zan. At the same time the 
volcano Assama yama, in Sinano, broke out into violent ac- 
tion, by which the two adjacent provinces were laid imder 
lava or dust. The same mountain broke out again in 1783, 
and of the destruction done at that time Titsingh gives a 
fearful account. He gives details of an earthquake which 
occurred in 1793 at Siraabara, during which a large por- 
tion of the mountain was swallowed up; and the boil- 
ing sulphurous springs of Onzen, memorable during the 
persecutions of the Christians, were dried up. The fear of 



I 



HISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED. 305 

the inhabitants was quickened by the recollection of the 
eruption of Assama yama, in Sinano, only ten years before. 
The inhabitants, with their houses, were engulfed in the 
openings of the earth; they were carried away by boiling 
water issuing from the hill; they were killed by falling 
stones and enormous rocks; they were surrounded and 
burned by streams of fiery lava; they were drowned by 
the stoppage of rivers. Some were found suspended from 
trees, some on their knees, some on their heads in mud, the 
streets strewed with dead bodies. The falling houses imme* 
diately took fire, and the unfortunate inmates were burned, 
or were confined prisoners. The outline of the coast was 
completely altered, and the country converted into a desert 
A number of vessels were sunk at their anchors, and those 
which tried to get away could hardly do so from dead bodies 
and floating wood. Fifty-three thousand are known to have 
perished in this earthquake in a comparatively thinly pop- 
ulated district. 

In 1828 a tremendous earthquake and volcanic eruption 
took place in the province of Etsingo, during which, at Ka« 
datchi, a large moimtain was engulfed and disappeared* 
This province seems to be entirely undermined by fire. The 
volcano Taka yama is called the entrance to hell. Oil 
springs from the ground. Combustible gas issues in such 
quantity as to be used for cooking and lighting, by simply 
inserting pipes in the ground. Phosphorescent appearances 
are seen in many parts. Soda is found in the province in 
large quantities. Here many flint arrow and spear heads 
have been found, exactly similar in shape to those found in 
Europe. 

The frequency of these earthquakes is a reason for nearly 
all the habitations of man being built of wood ; and by long 
experience builders have arrived at certain modes of build- 
ing, oy which the great danger of a house coming down 
upon the inmates is in many cases obviated. They seem to 
depend upon the roof for weight ; and the piles upon which 
this heavy roof rests are not fixed firmly into the ground. 



806 HISTORY OF JAPAN. 

but some of them are fixed slightly into a square framework 
of wood, laid on stone, while the others stand simply each 
upon the surface of a large, round, hard, water-rolled stone, 
which has been firmly imbedded in broken-down sandstone. 
By this means the snap of a sudden shock is avoided, and 
some slight motion is allowed. Whatever be the principle 
upon which these houses are erected, it is wonderful io see 
buildings, which seem to be put up in a shape the most ready 
to topple over upon the least motion, withstand the shocks of 
earthquakes for ages. There are pagodas in many parts of 
the country of seven and even nine stories high. At Kama- 
kura is a temple with a narrow circular neck, above which 
the eaves of a square roof project to about ten feet on every 
side, resembling the projection of a Chinaman's hat. If it 
could withstand the wind, it could never be expected to resist 
an earthquake ; and yet it is said to be two hundred years 
©Id, and seems as sound as when it was built. 

The annals do not disdain to mention the visits of the 
Emperor to witness theatrical exhibitions, or proceedings of 
the Shiogoon in quest of sport. 

The Japanese appear to be very partial to the theater, 
and there seems in the nation an innate aptitude for such 
representation. But while the government regulates this, 
as it does every other branch of the amusements as well as 
the education of the people, actors as a class are looked upon 
as the lowest in the scale of society. The female parts are 
generally taken by boys. 

Some companies go about the country composed entirely 
©f boys or young children, none of whom are apparently 
Upward of ten or twelve years of age. The people enjoy 
ttiese very much, and will take their meals and sit all day 
Watching the different acts, applauding vigorously at what- 
ever they appreciate in acting, or what may amuse them in 
the play. Nothing seems to excite their feelings and evoke 
their applause more than a well-acted suicide by stabbing the 
abdomen. During the evenings many minor places of amuse- 
ment are open, such as jugglers, marionettes, and tellers of 



HISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED. 307 

stories. Wrestling by professionals is another spectacle 
which always draws a very large concourse of spectators, 
generally male ; but women are on occasions to be seen view- 
ing the maneuvers of the contest with the greatest interest. 
These spectacles have been well, though perhaps over, de- 
Ecribed by Commodore Perry. Besides these full-grown 
wrestlers, companies go about, having under tuition boys of 
from eight to twelve years of age, who wrestle with all the 
pDmp and circumstance of their full-grown compeers. The 
tame laws regulate the game under the formal umpire. A 
successful wrestler is hailed with loud applause ; and under 
the influence of the excitement of the moment, money is fre- 
quently thrown to the conqueror, or for want of it men will 
throw their coats or napkins, which they afterward redeem. 
The long peace subsequent to the time of lyeyas, though 
unbroken by any national disturbance, was not wholly free 
from local events, which might, had they been fanned, have 
broken out in serious trouble. In 1837, Osaka and the neigh- 
borhood were disturbed by a rising which was instigated by 
an officer, Oshiwo, who, by the distribution of money and by 
placards, excited the people of the city against the author- 
ities. During the riot, which may be said to have lasted 
only one day, nearly all the principal shops in Osaka were 
pillaged and burned. The nngleader escaped, but was after- 
ward discovered, though he blew the house up in which he 
was hiding before he could be arrested. Notwithstanding 
Ihat the government exercises such surveillance over the 
people, and that one-fourth of the community seem to be 
spies upon the remainder, risings of the people do occasion- 
ally take place. These riots are especially frequent in the 
provinces of Oomi, Sinano, and Kahi. In the latter, during 
1838, a rebellion broke out which threatened to be somewhat 
more formidable than usual. Several high officers and many 
men on both sides were killed. In truth, in the province of 
Kahi (or Koshiu) the people are great politicians and unruly, 
and at the same time under some sort of volunteer organiza- 
tion. Officers are in general somewhat afraid of an appoint- 



808 HISTORY OF JAPAN, 

ment to the province, as the farmers are wealthy, and keep 
their servants well supplied with arms, which they teach 
them how to use. A strong force is always kept at Hatch 
oji, twenty-five miles from Yokohama on the road to Koshiu, 
as a protection to Yedo. 

In the year 1701 an occurrence took place which termi« 
nated in a tragedy, and has ever since been one of the na- 
tional tales of revenge, which, though it was confined to a 
few individuals, has conferred on them immortality, and the 
admiration of their countrymen as heroes. Assano, a Daimio 
from Ako, in the province of Harima, while within the pre- 
cincts of the Shiogoon's palace, was insulted by a Kokay of 
the name of Kira, when a quarrel and scuffle took place, 
during which Assano drew his sword. This was looked 
upon as such a heinous offense that he was ordered to kill 
himself, when the government confiscated his property, re- 
ducing his family and retainers to poverty. The retainers 
(known as Geeshi), exasperated by this severity, banded 
together for revenge, and forty-seven proceeded to the house 
of Kira, when a fight commenced, which was carried on 
during the whole night till the morning, by which time they 
were able to penetrate to his apartment and kill him. The 
whole forty-seven then proceeded in a regular and method- 
ical manner to commit suicide. They are all buried at the 
temple of Sengakuji, near the temple first occupied by the 
British Legation. 

In 1672 the powerful Lord of Sendai was put to death by 
his own servants. He also is memorable in Japanese story, 
but more on account of his baseness and cruelty, which he 
showed by a trait of character often chosen as a subject by 
native artists. Being a man given up to debauchery and 
the gratification of his passions, he became enamored of 
Takawo, the most beautiful courtesan of Tedo at the time. 
He wished her to accompany him to his castle in the north, 
but she refused. She had an aversion to him, but the offer 
of her weight in gold probably prevailed with her, or with 
those in whose possession she was, to give consent. He took 



HISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED. 309 

her with him, and on the way to his castle, upon asking her 
if she was not happy, she replied that she was not, when in 
a rage he drew his sword and cut off her head. 

The occasions upon which European vessels communi- 
cated with Japan during the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries seem to have been few, and at long intervals. 
About 1637, Lord Waddell, with some ships, called in at 
Nagasaki, but was not allowed to communicate with the 
Dutch. 

In 1673, 1768, 1791, 1793, 1796 and 1803, notices occur in 
the native annals of the visits of foreign vessels. 

In 1808, the "Phaeton" frigate, under Captain Pellew, 
paid a visit to Nagasaki during the time when Holland was 
at war with England. According to native accounts, the 
captain wished to carry off the Dutch commissioner. For 
that purpose he landed his men (in a boat made of leather?), 
who displayed the usual playful habits of English sailors in 
a foreign town, '* striking everybody, and breaking every- 
thing they could." The Prince of Hizen was not on the 
spot; the governor of Nagasaki was quite unprepared; the 
Prince's lieutenant proposed to burn the frigate by means of 
fire-boats, but the frigate sailed before any steps could be 
taken. The governor of the town, the Prince of Hizen, his 
lieutenant and the guards, are all said, by native accounts, 
to have committed suicide. 

In 1813, during the time when Holland was absorbed by 
France, Sir Stamford Raffles sent a vessel from Java with a 
Dutch officer to take the place of the representative of Hol- 
land then at Nagasaki ; but the man in possession was able 
to prevent his opponent landing, and held the place till he 
was relieved in 1817. 

In 1829, the "Cyprus," a vessel containing some convicts 
who had risen and murdered the crew, touched at Tanega. 
The "Morrison," which communicated with Japan shortly 
after, heard of some foreigners who had landed on the island 
of Tanega and forcibly carried off cattle. 

In 1846, American vessels came to Nagasaki to beg per- 



310 HISTORY OF JAPAN. 

mission to trade, and in 1849 some English vessels touched 
at Uranga. 

The native record of events concludes by stating that in 
1858 treaties were concluded with five nations — American, 
English, Dutch, Russian, and Portuguese — and that silver 
boos were exchanged for dollars. That in 1859 the Regent, 
Ee Kamong no kami, was assassinated; and the following 
year was that year in the cycle in which, recurring once in 
sixty years, it is permitted to women to ascend Fusiyama. 

The history of the empire is now brought down to a very 
important era, when relations with European nations are 
about to be reopened, but, in comparison with her past ex- 
perience, at a great disadvantage to Japan, in so far as she 
had to meet foes greatly in advance of herself in the prac- 
tical application of scientific investigation to the art of war, 
and when she allowed herself further to be outwitted in the 
diplomacy of treaty-making. The wars and animosities of 
European powers had for a long time drawn them away 
from the East and concentrated their attention nearer home; 
and the history of their withdrawal from the Eastern Seas is 
that of the struggle among European nations for the su- 
premacy of the sea. 

The English retired from Japan as a field of trade about 
the year 1623. The hatred of Holland to Spain and Portugal 
gave vigor to her efforts, and she drove their ships from the 
East, and remained in possession of the field, such as it was. 
By driving away competitors, however, the Dutch under- 
mined their own position, and deprived themselves of sup- 
port, moral as well as physical, and fell gradually into a 
position of contemptible dependence for the retention of 
a worthless trade. 

France appears to have made a feeble attempt, at the 
time when Colbert was Minister, to open up a trade with 
Japan, under the advice probably of Francis Caron, who 
had been Dutch commissioner at Nagasaki. In Chardin's 
Travels may be seen a letter addressed to the envoy, giving 
most minute instructions as to his conduct and treatment 



HISTORY OF EMPIRE CONTINUED. 311 

of the Japanese. Some of these might even be read with 
benefit by envoys of the present day. *'You shall keep your 
finest clothes, and which you have never wore in Japan, as 
shall likewise those of your retainers, till you are brought 
to court, and till the day of your audience. As soon as you 
shall arrive there, you shall cause your retinue to provide 
themselves with little leather pumps and slippers. The floors 
of the houses are covered with tapestry in Japan, for which 
reason you must put off your shoes when you enter them, 
and have some without quarters that you may quit them 
with greater ease." 

The United States of America came late into the field in 
Japan, but it may be said that the national action toward 
Japan has had a wider cosmopolitan infiuence than any 
other act since the Declaration of Independence. 

The opening up of China, and the enormous trade which 
followed in opium, silk, and treasure, caused by steam on 
the one hand and the discovery of gold in California on the 
other, together with the rapid advance in steam itself, all 
combined to force a trafl&c around Japan, and to place these 
islands on the very highway of commerce. It became every 
day more obvious that from one side or other, either from 
the English on the side of China, from the Russians on the 
north, or from America on the east, some attempt must be 
made before long to insist at least upon some measures of 
civil behavior, if not of genuine hospitality, being shown 
to vessels which required assistance, or which might bo 
wrecked upon the coasts of Japan. 

In 1846 an attempt was made by the United States gov- 
ernment to endeavor to break down, if possible, the system 
of exclusion kept up by Japan by the dispatch of two vessels 
of war, under Commodore Biddle, with the view of feeling 
the way toward a better acquaintance with the country. 
The result was not satisfactory, the commodore having been 
grossly and perhaps intentionally insulted. 

Mr. Fillmore, the President of the United States, deter 
mined to make another effort to break down the barrier, and 



312 BISTORY OP JAPAN. 

to make such a display as should show the Japanese that he 
was to a certain extent in earnest, and at the same time pre- 
vent any recurrence of such conduct toward his envoy. It 
is needless to discuss whether the Dutch or the Russians had 
any claim to priority of action in the matter. Commodore 
Perry has endeavored to overthrow any such claims; but 
such great political steps are seldom the result of a sudden 
outburst of vigor — it was gradually approached from all 
sides. It was, as has been said, one of the effects of the 
great innovator, steam, with other concurring circumstances, 
such as the opening of China and California, and the con- 
version of the Pacific Ocean into a highway of commerce. 
The breaking-up by British troops of the sham of the Chinese 
as a military nation, no doubt opened the eyes of Western 
nations. Japan lay in the way. No nation had a better 
claim to ask it to relax its restrictions upon friendly grounds 
than America. No nation was, perhaps, better suited to 
carry out the diplomatic part of such a proposal, whether the 
character of its officers as individuals, or the generally peace- 
ful professions on the part of the government, be looked at. 
There can, further, be little doubt but that the United States 
government was exceedingly fortunate or prudent in its 
choice of the man for the work. He had some acquaintance 
with Orientals learned in the school of China, and he brought 
this to bear practically upon his present work. He says he 
was convinced that, if he receded from any point which he 
had once gained, such would be considered as an advantage 
gained against him — that first-formed impressions among 
such people carry most weight — that with people of forms it 
is necessary to out-Herod Herod in assumed personal osten- 
tation and personal consequence — that a diplomatist ought 
with such persons never to recognize any personal superi- 
ority, and ought always to keep aloof from conversation or 
intercourse with inferiors, and yet cultivate as far as possible 
a friendly disposition toward the people. 

Commodore Perry left the President's letter on July 8, 
1863, for the consideration of the Japanese government. He 



THE PHILIPPINES, 311 

present himself within nine days, under penalty of arrest 
as a traitor. While this order was published, vague re- 
ports were intentionally spread that the Spaniards were 
coming to Hocos in great force. Many deserted Silan, 
but he contrived to deceive even the clergy and others 
by his feigned piety. Silan sent presents to Manila for 
the British, acknowledging the King of England to be his 
legitimate sovereign. The British governor sent, in re- 
turn, a vessel bearing dispatches to Silan, appointing him 
alcalde mayor. Elated with pride, Silan at once made 
this public. The natives were undeceived, for they had 
counted on him to deliver them from the British; now, 
to their dismay, they saw him the authorized magistrate 
of the invader. He gave orders to make all the Austin 
friars prisoners, saying that the British would send other 
clergy in their stead. The friars surrendered themselves 
without resistance and joined their bishop near Vigan, 
awaiting the pleasure of Silan. The bishop excommuni- 
cated Silan, and then he released some of the priests. The 
Christian natives having refused to slay the friars, a secret 
compact was being made, with this object, with the moun- 
tain tribes, when a half-caste named Yicos obtained the 
bishop's benediction to go and kill Silan; and the rebel- 
lion, which had lasted from December 14, 1762, to May 
28, 1763, ended. 

N"ot until a score of little battles had been fought were 
the numerous riots in the provinces quelled. The loyal 
troops were divided into sections, and marched north in 
several directions, until peace was restored by March, 
1765. Zuniga says that the Spaniards lost in these riots 
about seventy Europeans and one hundred and forty 



312 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

natives, while they cost the rebels quite ten thousand 
men. 

Space will not permit us to cite all the revolutionary 
protests which ensued. In the time of Legaspi the sub- 
mission of the Manila and Tondo chiefs was of but local 
and temporary importance. Since then, and in fact since 
the very beginning up to the present time, the natives 
have only yielded to a force which they have repeatedly 
tried to overthrow. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE HISPANO-AMERICAN WAR 

THE "MAINE" — THE COURT OF INQinRY — THE PRESIDENTS 
MESSAGE — DEWEY AT MANILA — HOBSON AND THE 
"MERRIMAC" — CERVERA'S RUN TO RUIN — THE CAPIT- 
ULATION OF SANTIAGO — THE MISSION OF PEACE 

When General Weyler assumed command in Cuba he 
issued, October 21, 1896, the following proclamation: 

**I order and command: 

"First — All the inhabitants of the country now outside 
of the line of fortifications of the towns shall within the 
period of eight days concentrate themselves in the towns so 
oc<mpied by the troops. Any individual who after the ex- 
piration of this period is found in the uninhabited parts 
will be considered a rebel and tried as such.'* 

At the time when the order was issued there was liv- 
ing within the western province a population of four hun- 
dred thousand men, women and children. The result of 
the order was to sweep them from their homes and fields 
and confine them in open-air prisons. No food whatever 
was supplied to them. As a result more than half oi 
them died. 

The indignation aroused became widespread. Weyler 

was recalled. At the time, especially in Havana among 

the officials who had been his adherents and who resented 

his recall, there was an expressed hatred of the Unitecl 

(313) 



314 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

States. That hatred it is generally understood resulted, 
on the night of February 15, 1898, in the blowing up of 
the '* Maine." 

The dispatch of this vessel to Cuban waters was 
a friendly act arranged by our government and that 
of Spain as one of a series of visits to be paid by the 
ironclads of the two countries to each other's harbors. 
While the *'Viscaya" was en route for New York the 
** Maine" went to Havana. The harbor there was subse- 
quently shown to have been sown with explosives. 

The findings of the Court of Inquiry, which was then 
held, as embodied in the report of the Foreign Relations 
Committee, set forth that the destruction of the *' Maine" 
was either compassed by the official act of the Spanish 
authorities, or was made possible by negligence on their 
part so willful and gross as to be equivalent to criminal 
culpability. 

The line of argument is as follows: It is established 
that the *' Maine" was destroyed by the explosion of 
a submarine mine in position under her in a Spanish 
harbor, at a place where she had been moored to a buoy 
by the express direction and guidance of the Spanish 
authorities. 

The report of the Spanish board of inquiry, which 
reported, after the most inadequate examination, that the 
explosion was due to the fault of the officers of the 
"Maine," and took place within the vessel itself, was 
declared to be manifestly false, and calculated to induce 
public opinion to prejudge the question. Taking this to- 
gether with the fact of the duplicity, treachery, and cru- 
elty of the Spanish character, the Senate concluded that 



THE HISPANO-AMERICAN WAR. 815 

the Spanish authorities must be held responsible for thd 
crime, either as its direct authors or as contributors 
thereto by willful and gross negligence. 

Spain offered to refer the question as to the cause of 
the loss of the "Maine" and their responsibility for the 
catastrophe to arbitration. The President made no reply. 

On April 11, anterior circumstances already sufficiently 
recited, joined to the findings oi the American Commid- 
sioners, resulted in the President sending a message to 
Congress, in which he said: 

"The long trial has proved that the object for which 
Spain has waged the war cannot be attained. The fir© 
of insurrection may fiame or may smolder with varying 
seasons, but it has not been, and it is plain that it can* 
not be, extinguished by present methods. The only hope 
of relief and repose from a condition which can no longer 
be endured is the enforced pacification of Cuba. 

"In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, 
in behalf of endangered American interests which give us 
the right and the duty to speak and to act, the war in 
Cuba must stop. 

"In view of these facts and of these considerations, I 
ask the Congress to authorize and empower the Presi- 
dent to take measures to secure a full and final termi- 
nation of hostilities between the government of Spain and 
the people of Cuba, and to secure in the island the estab- 
lishment of a stable government capable of maintaining, 
order and observing its international obligations, insuring 
peace and tranquillity, and the security of its citizens 
as well as our own, and to use the military and 
naval forces of the United States as may be necessary 
for these purposes. 

"William McKinlky." 



816 HISTORY OF SPAIN 

On April 19 Congress passed the following; 

Joint resolution for the recognition of the independ- 
ence of the people of Cuba, demanding that the 
government of Spain relinquish its authority and 
government in the island of Cuba, and to with- 
draw its land and naval forces from Cuba and 
Cuban waters, and directing the President of the 
United States to use the land and naval forces of 
the United States to carry these resolutions into 
effect. 

*^ Whereas, The abhorrent conditions which have ex- 
isted for more than three years in the island of Cuba, so 
near our own borders, have shocked the moral sense of 
the people of the United States, have been a disgrace 
to Christian civilization, culminating, as they have, in 
the destruction of a United States battleship, with two 
hundred and sixty of its officers and crew, while on a 
friendly visit in the harbor of Havana, and cannot longer 
be endured, as has been set forth by the President of the 
United States in his message to Congress of April 11, 1898, 
upon which the action of Congress was invited; therefore 
be it resolved, 

** First — That the people of the island of Cuba are, and 
of right ought to be, free and independent. 

*' Second — That it is the duty of the United States to 
demand, and the government of the United States does 
hereby demand, that the government of Spain at once 
relinquish its authority and government in the island of 
Cuba, and withdraw its land and naval forces from Cuba 
and Cuban waters. 

*' Third— That the President of the United States be, 
and he hereby is, directed and empowered to use the en- 
tire land and naval forces of the United States, and to 
call into the actual service of the United States the militia 
of the several States to such an extent as may be neces- 
sary to carry these resolutions into effect. 



THE HISPANO-AMERICAN WAR. 317 

'* Fourth — That the United States hereby disclaims any 
disposition or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdic- 
tion or control over said island, except for the pacifica- 
tion thereof, and asserts its determination when that is 
accomplished to leave the government and control of the 
island to its people." 

The ultimatum embodied in the foregoing being re- 
jected by Spain, diplomatic relations were severed and 
hostilities ensued. 

On May 1, at daybreak, the Asiatic squadron, com- 
manded by Commodore Dewey, arrived at Manila from 
Hong Kong. At Cavite, within the harbor, protected by 
four batteries, lay the Spanish fleet. It was commanded 
by Admiral Patricio Montojo. The squadron proceeded 
up the bay unmolested and made for the naval station. 
Two mines were exploded, but ineffectively. At five 
o'clock and ten minutes the Spaniards opened fire. Com- 
modore Dewey set the signals, and his entire squadron 
advanced to short range. The squadron consisted of the 
following cruisers and gunboats: "Olympia," "Balti- 
more," **Boston," ''Raleigh," ''Concord," "Petrel," and 
"McCulloch." 

At 5.30 the " Olympiads" 8-inch guns opened, and the 
squadron swung in front of the Spanish ships and forts 
in single file, firing their port guns. Then, wheeling, they 
passed back, firing their starboard guns. This maneuver 
was repeated five times, the entire American fleet passing 
all the Spanish ships and batteries at each maneuver, and 
each time drawing in closer and closer and delivering fire 
at more deadly range. During two hours and a half ther9 
was tremendous resistance by the Spaniards. They had 



318 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

eleven ships and five land batteries in full play, against 
six American warships. But the American marksman- 
ship was faultless. Every shot seemed to count against 
ship or shore battery, while most of the Spanish powder 
was burned in vain. At 7.45 a.m. the American fleet 
withdrew to ascertain damages and permit the smoke to 
clear. It was seen then that several Spanish ships were 
crippled or burning, and it was found that the Ameri- 
can vessels had suffered hardly at all. Admiral Dewey 
called his captains into consultation and arrangements were 
made for another attack. At 10.40 the attack was renewed, 
the ** Baltimore" leading. She advanced right upon the 
enemy, shelling them constantly, and the other Ameri- 
cans followed, working their guns as rapidly as they could 
load and fire. The effect of this assault was terrific. Ship 
after ship of the Spaniards sunk or was run ashore to 
keep them from sinking or falling into American hands. 
At 12.45 P.M. the Spaniards struck their colors in token 
of surrender. Admiral Patricio Montojo fled to Manila, 
and most of the survivors fled with him. This ended the 
work of May 1. 

On May 2, Commodore Dewey landed a force of ma- 
rines at Cavite. They completed the destruction of the 
Spanish fleet and batteries and estabhshed a guard for 
the protection of the Spanish hospitals. The resistance 
of the forts was weak. The "Olympia" turned a few 
guns on the Cavite arsenal, and its magazine at once ex- 
ploded, killing some and wounding many. This prac- 
tically ended the fire from the batteries, the Spanish 
artillerists fearing to face the American gunners. **Re- 
membor the * Maine' 1" was the word continually passed 



THE HISPANO-AMERICAN WAR, 819 

between the ships, and every American officer, every 
**Jackie,'* was eager to do his utmost. 

After Manila and the defeat of Admiral Montojo, the 
successive and concluding events of the Hispano- Ameri- 
can war include Admiral Sampson's bombardment of San 
Juan; Hobson's heroic experiment with the *'Merrimac"; 
General Shafter's campaign; the destruction of Cervera's 
squadron; the capitulation of Santiago; General Miles's 
tour in Porto Rico, and the overtures for peace. These 
events may be conveniently summarized as follows: 

The bombardment of San Juan was the result of a 
reconnaissance. The Spanish fleet, under command of 
Admiral Cervera, which it was the purpose of the Ameri- 
cans to capture or destroy, subsequently sought and 
found shelter within the harbor of Santiago, the entrance 
to which Admiral Sampson then proceeded to invest. 
There, while waiting to engage the enemy, it was thought 
wise to attempt to block the harbor and so prevent a pos- 
sible escape. The plan originated with Lieutenant Hob- 
son, and its execution was left to him. On the night of 
June 3, with a picked crew of seven volunteers, he steamed 
up in the collier **Merrimac" to the harbor's entrance and 
sank her. From the fleet the progress of the "Merrimac'* 
was eagerly followed. 

At 3.15 the first Spanish shot was fired, coming from 
one of the guns on the hill to the west of the entrance. 
The shot was seen to splash seaward from the **Merri- 
mac," having passed over her. The firing became gen- 
eral very soon afterward, being especially fierce and rapid 
from the batteries inside on the left of the harbor, prob- 
ably from batteries on Smith Cay. The flashes and re- 



820 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

ports were apparently those of rapid-fire guns, ranging 
from small automatic guns to four-inch or larger. For 
fifteen minutes a perfect fusillade was kept up. Then the 
fire slackened and by 3.30 had almost ceased. There 
was a little desultory firing imtil about 3.45, when all 
became quiet. Daylight came at about five o'clock. 

At about 6.15 A.M., a launch, which under Cadet 
Powell had followed the "Merrimac," in order if possible 
to rescue Hobson and his men, was seen steaming from 
west to east, near or across the mouth of the harbor. She 
steamed back from east to west and began skirting the 
coast to the west of the entrance. The battery on the hill 
to the left opened fire on her, but did not make good prac- 
tice. The launch continued her course as far westward 
as a small cove and then headed for the "Texas,'* steam- 
ing at full speed. Several shots were fired at her from 
the battery on the left as she steamed out. 

It was broad daylight by this time. Cadet Powell 
came alongside the "Texas" and reported that "No one 
had come out of the entrance of the harbor." His words 
sounded like the death knell of all who had gone in on 
the "Merrimac." It seemed incredible, almost impossible, 
any of them could have lived through the awful fire that 
was directed at the ship. Cadet Powell said that he had 
followed behind the ship at a distance of four or five hun- 
dred yards. Hobson missed the entrance of the harbor at 
first, having gone too fax to the westward ; he almost ran 
aground. The launch picked up the entrance and directed 
the "Merrimac" in. From the launch the collier was seen 
until she rounded the bend of the channel and until the 
helm had been put to port to swing her into position across 



THE HISPANO- AMERICAN WAR. 321 

the channel. There was probably no one in the fleet who 
did not think that all seven of the men had perished. In 
the afternoon, much to the surprise of every one, a tug 
flying a flag of truce was seen coming out of the entrance. 
The "Vixen," flying a tablecloth at the fore, went to meet 
the tug. A Spanish officer went aboard the '* Vixen" from 
the tug and was taken aboard the flagship. Net long 
afterward a signal was made that Murphy of the *'Iowa" 
was saved and was a prisoner of war. About four o'clock 
another signal was made from the flagship: "Collier's 
crew prisoners of war; two slightly wounded. All well." 
It can be easily imagined what relief this signal brought 
to all hands, who had been mourning the death of all 
these men. The Spanish officer said also that the prisoners 
were confined in Morro Castle. He said further that Ad- 
miral Cervera considered the attempt to run in and sink 
the "Merrimac" across the channel an act of such great 
bravery and desperate daring that he (the Admiral) thought 
it very proper that our naval officers should be notified of 
the safety of these men. Whatever the motive for send- 
ing out the tug with the flag of truce, the act was a most 
graceful one and one of most chivalrous courtesy. The 
Spanish officer is reported to have said: "You have made 
it more difficult, but we can still get out." 

The daring evinced by Hobson was instantly recog- 
nized, but the importance of his achievement was not ap- 
preciated until July 3, when Cervera's desperate attempt 
to escape, would, in all likelihood, have been partly suc- 
cessful but for the fact that his vessels were obliged to 
leave the harbor in single file. 

Let us, however, recapitulate in their order the events 



322 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

which followed the sinking of the **Merrimac," news 
whereof was received on June 4. On June 5, a bom- 
bardment of the Morro Castle, commanding the mouth 
of Santiago Harbor, took place, but no serious impression 
seems to have been made upon the fortress at that time, 
although some neighboring earthworks were destroyed. 
Two days later, there was a more effective bombardment 
of the harbor fortifications by Admiral Sampson, but the 
Morro Castle still held out and protected the entrance to 
the port by its ability to deliver a plunging fire. On 
June 9, it was known that twelve thousand men, or 
about half c€ our regular army, together with a number 
of volunteer regiments, under General Shafter, had set 
sail from Tampa, and, cm the following day, the Span- 
iards began preparaticms for a vigorous defense of San- 
tiago against a land force by means of carefully planned 
intrenchments. On Jime 11, a body of United States 
marines landed at Quantanamo Bay, and, on the three 
ensuing days, sustained successfully determined assaults 
by the Spaniards. On June 15, the "Vesuvius," carry- 
ing a pnemnatic gun, which discharges a tube loaded with 
dynamite, arrived off Santiago, and fully justified the ex- 
pectations of her inventor by the efficient part which she 
took in the bombardment. Since June 7, the Spaniards 
had attempted to repair the Santiago forts, and had, to 
some extent, succeeded in doing so; consequently, on June 
16, Admiral Sampson ordered the ships to open fire on 
them again, and, in this assault, is said to have dis- 
charged five hundred thousand pounds of metal. It was 
not until June 22, or thirteen days after his departure 
from Tampa, that General Shafter landed his troops at 



THE HISPANO-AMSRICAN WAIL 8d5 

Baiquiri, a point on the coast some milee southweet o£ 
Santiago. There was furious fighting during the three 
following days, and there was a gnerous loss of Hfe oai 
the American side, infantry and dismounted cavalry hav- 
ing been ordered or allowed to attack intrenchments with- 
out artillery suf^rt. The necessity of heavy si^^ guiia 
was at once dear to professional sddiers, but these oould 
not be moved from the transports to the shore, because 
only one lighter had been brought from Tampa., and even 
that one had been lost. This loss oonld have been qnlokljr 
repaired, had not General Shafter refused to take with 
him frcxn Tampa the signal train that had been made 
ready f<»r him» on the ground HbaA he **OBiy wanted men 
who oould carry mus^ts.'' The result ci lisk indi&teooo 
to a branch of the service which constitutes the eyesi 
ears and voice ci a modem army, was that it requiied 
two days to transmit a request from Shafter's head* 
quarters to the point where the cable could be need. 
On June 29, not having, as yet, any heavy si^e guns 
in position, and not having so surrounded the city as 
to prevent the re-enforcement or escape of its garr^n^ 
General Shafter telegraphed to Washington: "I can take 
Santiago in forty-eight hours." On July 1 and 3, Gen- 
eral Shafter made resolute assaults upon the Spanish in- 
trenchments and carried many of them, advancing his 
own lines very much nearer the city. The advsmtage 
thus gained, however, had cost him a considerable frac- 
tion of his force. The whole number of Americans 
killed, wounded and missing during the land operations 
reached ten per cent of ths number with which Gen- 
eral Shafter landed on June 22. Of these land engage- 



9fti HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

ments the most notable were those of Aguadores, El 
Caney and San Juan. 

The battle of San Juan is described as follows: 
The dawn of July I found the troops of Wheeler's 
division bivouacked on the eminence of El Pozo. Kent's 
division bivouacked near the road back of El Pozo. 
Grimes's battery went into position about two hundred 
and fifty yards west of the ruined buildings of El Pozo 
soon after sunrise and prepared gun pits. Grimes's bat- 
tery opened fire against San Juan a little before 8 a.m. 
The troops of the cavalry division were scattered about on 
SI Pozo Hill in the rear and around the battery, with- 
out order and with no view to their protection from the 
Spanish fire. This condition rectified itself when the Span* 
iards, after five or six shots by the American battery, 
replied with shrapnel fire at correct range and with accu- 
rately adjusted fuses, killing two men at the first shot. 
After some firing soon after 9 a.m. Wheeler's division 
was put in march toward Santiago. Crossing Agua- 
dores stream, it turned to the right, under General Sum- 
ner, who was in command at that time owing to General 
Wheeler's illness. Scattering shots were fired by the Span- 
iards before the arrival of the first troops at the crossing, 
but their volley firing did not commence until the dis- 
mounted cavalry went into position, crossing open ground. 
Kent's division followed Wheeler's, moving across the 
stream, and advanced along the road in close order under 
a severe enfilading fire. After advancing some distance, 
it turned off to the left. Lieutenant Ord (killed in battle) 
made a reconnaissance from '^> large tree on the banks of 
the stream. 



THE HISP AND- AMERICAN WAR 325 

At about one o'clock, after a delay of nearly two hours 
waiting for the troops to reach their positions, the whole 
force advanced, charged, and carried the first line of 
intrenchments. They were afterward formed on the crest 
and there threw up intrenchments facing the second line 
at a distance of from five himdred to one thousand 
yards. 

We pass to the memorable naval combat of July S, 
which annihilated Cervera's squadron, and dealt the death- 
blow to Spain's hope of making head against America on 
the sea. There is, of course, no foundation for the report 
that Admiral Cervera resolved to fly, because he knew that 
Santiago would be immediately taken. The truth is that, 
on July 2, he received peremptory orders from Madrid to 
leave Santiago at once, no matter what might be the con* 
sequences; to engage the American Seet, and to make his 
way, if possible, to Havana, where he would raise the 
blockade. These orders he did his best to execute on the 
morning of July 3, having been informed by signal thai 
Admiral Sampson's flagship, the "New York," and a 
large part of the American fleet, were lying at some di»» 
tance toward the east, and that only the "BrooHyn,** 
"Texas" and "Iowa" would have to be encoimtered if 
the escaping ships moved westward. There was a mis- 
take in this computation, for the "Oregon" also took 
an important part in the action, and so did the littls 
"Gloucester," a converted yacht, which did not hesitate, 
single-handed, to engage both of the torpedo-boat destroy* 
ers. With sach information as he could procure, how* 
ever, Admiral Cervera believed that his ships could out* 
sail all dt those blockading the month olt the harbor, ex* 



826 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

cept the "Brooklyn," and that, if the "Brooklyn" could 
be disabled, some, at least, of his vessels could escape. 
Accordingly, orders were issued by the Spanish admiral 
to proceed at full speed to the westward after clearing 
the entrance, and to concentrate fire upon the "Brook- 
lyn." In the attempt to carry out this programme, the 
four warships, "Maria Teresa," "Almirante Oquendo," 
"Vizcaya" and "Cristobal Colon," followed by the tor- 
pedo-boat destroyers "Pluton" and "Furor," in the order 
named and in single file, pushed with all steam up through 
the narrow passage which had been left by the sunken 
"Merrimac." The concerted endeavor to disable the 
"Brooklyn" failed, and it turned out that both the "Ore- 
gon" and "Texas" were faster than the "Cristobal Co- 
lonj'* which was much the swiftest of the Spanish squad- 
ron- The "Maria Teresa," the "Almirante Oquendo" and 
the "Vizcaya" were successively riddled and put hors de 
combat by the rapid and accurate firing of the American 
ships, and were beached by their officers to avoid, not se» 
much surrender, as the danger of explosion. The "Cris- 
tobal Colon" succeeded in reaching a point about fifty 
miles from Santiago, when it was headed off not only by 
the protected cruiser "Brooklyn," but also by the iron- 
clads "Oregon" and "Texas." From that moment, es- 
cape was seen to be impossible, so the commander beached 
his ship and hauled down his flag. This closing incident 
of the battle took place at 1.20 P.M., almost exactly four 
hours after the leading vessel of the escaping column, the 
"Maria Teresa," had passed the Morro. Meanwhile, the 
little "Gloucester," under Commander Richard Wain» 
Wright, had stopped both of the torpedo-boat destroyers. 



THS HISPANO-AMERICAN WAIL 831 

received their fire, and detained them until an Ixoiiclad 
came up. 

It will be observed that the Spanish sqtu^ron did 
not have to contend with the whole of the American 
fleet, but that, on the contrary, the forces engaged were, 
on paper» much more nearly equal than is generally tm- 
derstood. The Americans had the first-class battleiihipi 
"Oregon" and "Iowa,** the second-class battleship "Tex- 
as," the protected cruiser "Brooklyn" and the converled 
yacht "Qloucester." The Spaniards, on their part» had 
one armored cruiser, three protected cnosers, and two 
torpedo-boat des t royers. It is certainly a remarkable Hei^ 
and one almost without a parallel in naval annalsB If we 
exc^ Dewey's achievement al Manila, that not a ssagio 
one of the Spanish vessels should have managed lo ear 
cape. The honor of the almost unique victory at 8an> 
tiago belongs, beyond a doubt, to Commodore Sehl^, 
for, at the beginning of the action, Admiral Sampoon, te 
his fiaghip, the "New York," was out of sight, and hm 
remained out of signal distance until alm(^ the end. 

Almost immediately after these incidents an ezpedHian 
under command of Qeaeral Miles proceeded to F6rto 
Hico, where, on the southwest coast, at the little vilkigt 
of Guanica, a landing was effected on July 35. 

Twenty -four hours later the Spanish government, 
through M. Jules Cambon, the French embassador al 
Washington, made a formal proposal for ending the war 
and arranging terms of peace 



CHAPTER Xlli 
SPAmaU ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT 

1 

PAINTING AND ARCHITECTURE 

Early Spanish paintings are feeble imitations of Ital* 
Ian and Flemish art. They lack the simplicity of the one 
and the realism of the other. In color they are somber 
and monotonous — two qualities which chraracterize the 
whole Spanish school. The value of this school has been 
euriously overrated. Comparatively speaking of brief ex- 
istence, it has produced but two great painters — Velasquez 
and Murillo. Their contemporaries, Znrbaran, del Mazo, 
Ribera, Alonso Oana, Herrera and Koelas, were men of 
ability, no doubt, but they were not masters. 

Excellent examples of Velasquez and of Murillo are to 
be foimd to-day in the Museum of the Prado at Madrid, 
and in the Art Gallery of Seville. The cathedrals and 
ehurches generally contain works of the principal paint- 
ers, both of the early and later times; but placed, as a 
rule, in "Retablos" or altar pieces, they are poorly ex- 
posed and difficult to view. 

Don Diego Velasquez db Silva, or simpiy Vblas- 
QUBS, the greatest painter that Spain has produced, was 
born at Seville, in 1599, of parents of Portuguese origin, and 
died at Madrid in 1660. He married in his youth the daugh- 
ter of Francisco Pacheco, a painter of inferior merit, but 
a learned writer on art, from whose advice and instruction 
he derived much advantage. Velasquez showed from his 
childhood a genius for painting. He began by copying care- 
fully from nature, still life, and living models, forming him- 
self upon the study oi pictures by Cibera and by Italian 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 329 

masters of the Naturalistic school, which had been brought 
from Italy to Spain. The best examples of his first manner 
are "The Adoration of the Kings" and his famous "Bor- 
rachos," or drunkards, in the Madrid Gallery. In them the 
influence of Caravaggio and Ribera is very evident. In the 
twenty-third year of his age he came to Madrid, and, attract- 
ing the notice of influential persons, was soon taken into the 
service of Philip IV. — an enthusiastic lover of art, and him- 
aelf a painter. He remained there for the rest of his life, 
and his pictures were almost exclusively painted for his royal 
patron and for the grandees of the Spanish court. A friend- 
ship with Rubens, who was in Madrid as embassador from 
the King of England, in 1628, and two visits to Italy, in 1629 
and 1648, led him to modify his early manner. From the 
study at Venice of the masterpieces of Titian and Tintoret, 
he acquired a greater harmony and transparency of color, 
and a freer and firmer touch, without departing from that 
truthful representation of nature which he always sought to 
attain. On his second visit to Italy he chiefly studied in 
Rome. He again changed his style: his coloring became 
more what the Italians term **sfumato," or hazy; and he 
returned, to some extent, to his early general soberness of 
tone, rarely introducing bright colors into his last pictures. 
Velasquez's second and third manners, as well as his first, 
are fully represented in the Madrid Gallery, which contains 
no less than sixty of his pictures, or almost the whole of his 
genuine works. The "Borrachos" have already been men- 
tioned as an example of his first manner. The fine portrait 
of the Infante Don Carlos, second son of Philip III., is an- 
other. In his second manner are the ' ' Surrender of Breda, ' ' 
perhaps the finest representation and treatment of a contem- 
porary historical event in the world ; the magnificent portrait 
of the Count of Benavente, and the four Dwarfs. In his 
third, the ' ' Meninas, ' ' and the ' ' Hilanderas. ' ' By studying 
these pictures the student will soon be able to distinguish 
between the three manners of the painter, and to decide for 
himself as to the genuineness of the many pictures which 
pass for Velasquez's in the public and private galleries of 
Europe. 

It was principally as a portrait-painter that Velasquez 
excelled. Although he wanted the imagination of Titian, 
and gave less dignity and refinement than that great master 
to his portraits, yet in a marvelous power of rendering nature, 
and in truthfulness of expression, he was not his inferior. In 



330 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

the imaginative faculties he was singularly deficient, as his 
*' Forge of Vulcan," the *' Coronation of the Virgin," and 
other works of that class in the Madrid Gallery, are sufficient 
to prove. However, the "Crucifixion," in the same collec- 
tion, is a grand and solemn conception, which has excited 
the enthusiastic admiration of some critics. Velasquez was 
essentially a *' naturalistic" painter. In the representation 
of animals, especially dogs, and of details such as armor, 
drapery, and objects of still-life, he is almost without a rival. 
His freedom of touch and power of producing truthful effects 
by the simplest means are truly wonderful. His aerial per- 
spective, his light and shade, his gradations of tone and 
color, are all equally excellent, and have excited the admira- 
tion of Wilkie, and of the best judges of art. 

The high offices which Velasquez held at court gave him 
but little time to paint. The number of his pictures is, there- 
fore, comparatively small. They were principally executed 
for the royal palaces; those which have escaped the fires that 
destroyed so many great works have been removed to the 
Madrid Museum. The portraits which are attributed to him 
in many public and private collections out of Spain are, for 
the most part, by his pupils, or imitators and copyists. One 
of the most skillful of the latter was a certain Lucas, who, 
not many years ago, succeeded in deceiving many collectors. 

Among his best scholars were : Juan Bautista del Mazo 
(d. 1667), his son-in-law. How nearly he approached his 
master may be seen by his admirable portrait of D. Tibm'cio 
de Redin, and the view of Saragossa, in which the figures 
have even been attributed to Velasquez, in the Madrid Gal- 
lery. Pareja, his half-caste slave, and afterward freedman 
(d. 1670), who imitated his master in his portraits, but not 
in his religious and other subjects, in which he followed the 
Dutch and Italian painters of the time; as in his "Calling of 
St. Mark, ' ' in the same gallery. Carreno, a member of a 
noble family (b. 1614; d. 1685), who succeeded Velasquez as 
court painter, and who is chiefly known by his portraits of 
the idiot king (Charles II.), his mother, Mariana of Austria, 
Don John of Austiia (not the hero of Lepanto), and other 
royal and courtly persons of the period. Spanisn writers on 
art rank him with Vandyke, to whom, however, he was 
greatly inferior. His coloring is generally insipid, and want- 
ing in vigor. 

Bartolomb Esteban Murillo was bom at Seville in 
1616. He studied under Juan del Castillo^ a very indiffereot 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 331 

painter, but formed his style, like Velasquez, on the works of 
Ribera and the Italian naturalistic painters. Like that great 
master, too, he modified his "manner" three times, as he 
gained in experience and knowledge. From his boyhood 
he painted pictures which were sold in the market-place of 
his native city, and bought by dealers; chiefly, it is said, for 
exportation to the Spanish colonies in America. After ob- 
taining a considerable reputation at Seville, he went to Ma- 
drid to improve himself by the study of the works of the 
great Italian masters in the royal collection. Their influ- 
ence led him to modify his first style, called by the Spaniards 
frio (cold), in which he had imitated the brown tints, dark 
shadows, and conventional treatment of drapery of Ribera ; 
but he did not abandon it altogether. It may still be traced 
in his second, or calido (warm) manner, as in the celebrated 
*'Holy Family," called "del Pajarito," in the Madrid Gal- 
lery. The advice of Velasquez, who treated him with great 
kindness, and the works of Titian and Rubens, led him to 
adopt a warm, harmonious and transparent coloring, and a 
more truthful rendering of nature; at the same time his 
drawing became more free, if not more correct. His third 
manner is termed by the Spaniards vaporoso (misty), from 
a gradual and almost imperceptible fusion of tints, produc- 
ing a kind of hazy effect. In it are painted, for the most 
part, his well-known "Miraculous Conceptions," the Virgin 
standing on the crescent moon attended by angels. The 
three manners of Murillo are neither so well defined nor so 
easily recognized as those of Velasquez. He never com- 
pletely abandoned one of them for the other, and in his last 
pictures he frequently returned to the calido style. As a 
painter of portraits and landscapes, he was inferior to Velas- 
quez. It was only in religious subjects, and especially in his 
Holy Families, that he surpassed him. His Virgins are 
taken from the common type of .Andalusian beauty, slightly 
ideahzed ; but he gives to them an expression of youthful in- 
nocence and religious sentiment which makes him the most 
popular of Spanish painters. The Spaniards are naturally 
proud of him. They believe that he unites the best qualities 
of the greatest masters, and surpasses them all. All other 
critics place him second to Velasquez, who unquestionably 
possessed a more original genius. Comparisons between 
these two great painters are, however, more than usually 
pointless and misleading, the two men being essentially 
different in feeling, taste, and manner. 



332 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

Returning to Seville, after his first and only visit to 
Madrid, Murillo established himself there for tne rest of 
his Hfe, painting, with the help of scholars, many picture© 
for churches and convents in Spain and her colonies. In 
the Peninsula, his best works are now only found at Madrid 
and in his native city. The French invaders and the pict- 
ure-dealers carried the greater number away. Among tnose 
most worthy of note at Madrid are the "St. Elizabeth of 
Hungary tending the Sick," and the "Patrician's Dream," 
now in the Academy of San Fernando, and the two "Immac- 
ulate Conceptions" in the Gallery: at Seville, "St. Thomas 
of Villanueva distributing Alms to the Poor," in the public 
Museum; the "St. Anthony of Padua" in the Cathedral; and 
the pictures in the Caridad. Of his well-known sunburned 
beggar-boys and girls there are none, that we know of, in 
Spain ; many of those in European collections are probably 
by his favorite pupil, Villavicencio, in whose arms he died 
at Seville in 1682. There is a picture by this painter, who 
was of a noble family, and rather an amateur than an artist, 
in the Madrid Gallery, representing a group of boys at play. 
It has no great merit, but shows how he attempted to imitate 
his master in this class of subject. He was bom in 1635, 
and died in 1700. The imitations and copies of Murillo by 
ToBAR (d. 1758) are so successful that they frequently pass 
for originals. The same may be said of some by Meneses, 
who died early in the 18th century. 

Among the contemporaries of Murillo was Iriabtb (b. 
1620 ; d. 1685), one of the few landscape-painters that Spain 
has produced. His landscapes were much esteemed by 
Murillo, but they are not entitled to rank with the works of 
any of the great masters in this branch of the art. The 
Madrid Gallery contains five examples of them. 

The following painters may be mentioned among the best 
and most characteristic of the second class in the Spanish 
school: Francisco de Zurbaran, bom in Estremadura 
in 1598, died at Madrid, 1663, was essentially a religious 
painter, and his somber coloring and the subjects of his pict- 
ures are characteristic of Spanish bigotry and of the Inquisi- 
tion. In Spain he is chiefly known by his altar-pieces for 
churches and convents; out of Spain by his monks and friars. 
A few figures of female saints prove that he was not insensi- 
ble to grace of form and beauty of color. But he is usually 
mannered, and without dignity. A disagreeable reddish hue 
pervades his larger pictures. He formed himself, hke his 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 333 

contemporaries, on the study of the Italian painters of the 
Naturalistic school. Philip IV. is said to have named him 
"Painter of the King, and King of Painters.'* He enjoyed 
the first title, but did not merit the second. His best work in 
Spain is, perhaps, the '* Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas,'* 
in the Seville Museum. It is a grand, but somewhat stiff 
and unpleasing composition. Zurbaran is badly represented 
in the Madrid Gallery. The "Christ Sleeping on the Cross" 
is the most popular in it. One or two of his works are to be 
found in the Academy of San Fernando. 

Alonso Cano (born at Granada, 1601; died there, 1667) 
enjoys the highest reputation in Spain after Zurbaran. He 
was painter, sculptor, and architect, and, moreover, carved 
and painted wooden figures of the Virgin and Saints, an art 
in which he attained great success and renown. Many ex- 
amples of his skill may be seen at Granada. One of the 
most celebrated is the statuette of St. Francis in the sacristy 
of the Cathedral of Toledo. Cano was a violent, but not 
unkindly man, constantly engaged in quarrels and lawsuits. 
He ended by becoming a canon of the Cathedral of Granada, 
after narrowly escaping from the clutches of the Inquisition, 
His drawing is carefully studied, but is frequently exagger- 
ated, and wants ease and flow; his coloring conventional and 
somewhat weak ; but there is a delicacy of expression and 
refinement in his works which have earned him the praise of 
some critics. The Madrid Gallery contains a few of his pict- 
ures: among them a "Dead Christ"; but he is best seen at 
Granada. 

Francisco Herrera el. Viejo, or the elder (b. 1576; 
d. 1656). His principal works are at Seville and out of Spain. 
The Madrid Gallery contains nothing by him. Spanish writ- 
ers on art attribute to him the introduction into Spain of a 
new style of painting, characteristic of the national genius. 
It was vigorous, but coarse, and has little to recommend it 
even to those who admire the Italian eclectic school. Like 
Cano, he was a man of hot temper, quarreled with his pupils, 
among whom was Velasquez, and was thrown into prison on 
a charge of coining false money. He was released by Philip 
IV. on account of his merits as a painter. His best work in 
Spain is the "Last Judgment," in the church of St. Bernardo 
at Seville, which is praised for its composition and the eor- 
lect anatomy of the human form. Herrera painted in fresco, 
for which he was well fitted from his bold and rapid execu- 
tion | but his works ia that material have mostly perished. 



834 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

Francisco Herrbra el Mozo, or the younger (b. 1622; 
d. 1685), son of the former, studied at Rome, where he was 
chiefly known for his pictures of dead animals and still life. 
The Italians nicknamed him "Lo Spagnuolo dei pesci," from 
his clever representations of fish. He was a painter of small 
merit; weak and affected in his drawing, color, and compo- 
sition. The Madrid Gallery contains but one of his pictures 
— the "Triumph of St. Hermenegildo." Like his father, he 
painted frescoes, some of which are still preserved in the 
churches of Madrid = He was also an architect, and made 
the plans for the "Virgen del Pilar" at Saragossa. 

JxjAN DE LAS RoELAS, commonly known in Spain as "El 
Clerigo Roelas," was born at Seville about 1558, and ^ . }. in 
1625. He studied at Venice; hence the richness and bril- 
liancy of color in his best works, as in the fine picture of the 
** Martyrdom of St. Andrew," in the Museum of Seville. In 
the churches of that city are some altar-pieces by him worthy 
of notice. He is scarcely known out of Spain, or, indeed, 
out of Seville, although he may be ranked among the best 
of the Spanish painters of the second rank. The picture in 
the Madrid Gallery attributed to him, if genuine, is a very 
inferior work. 

Juan de Vald^s Leal, bom at Cordova in 1630, died 
at Seville 1691, was a painter of considerable ability, but of 
a hasty and jealous temjjer, which he especially displayed 
toward Murillo, the superiority of whose work he would not 
acknowledge. His pictures are rare, and are best seen at 
Seville. The Caridad in that city contains two, representing 
the "Triumph of Death," which are powerful, but coarse. 
He was also an engraver of skill. 

Francisco Rizzi, the son of a Bolognese painter who had 
settled in Spain, was bom at Madrid in 1608, and died there 
in 1686. He was a rapid and not unskillful painter, and was 
employed to decorate in fresco, in the Italian fashion, the 
churches and roval palaces of the capital. His well-known 
mcture in the Madrid Gallery representing the "Auto da 
Fe'' held in the Plaza Mayor before Charles 11. and his 
queen, Marie Luisaof Orleans, in 1680, although awkward 
and formal in composition, is cleverly painted. 

Claudio Coello, died 1693, was chiefly employed by 
the Spanish court in portrait-painting and in decorating the 
royal palaces for triumphs and festivities. His best known 
and most important picture, in the sacristy of the Escorial, 
IB the "Santa FonDa,'' or "Bemoval oi' the Miraculous Wafer 



SPANISH ART, LITERATUBE, AND 8P0BT. 835 

of Gtorcum," in which he has introduced portraits of Charles 
II. and of the ofiScers of his court. It is ci'owded and un* 
skillful in composition, but has merits which show that he 
had preserved the best traditions of the Spanish school of 
painters, of whom he was almost the last. 

The history of Spanish painting closes with the seventeenth 
century. During the eighteenth there appeared a few feeble 
painters who imitated, but were even immeasurably behind, 
the Luca Giordanos, Tiepolos, and other Italians whom the 
Bourbon Mngs invited to Madrid to decorate the new royal 
palace, and to make designs for the royal manufactory of 
tapestries. The first who attempted to revive Spani^ art 
was Fbancisco Gk)'YA (bom in 1746), a vigorous out eccen- 
tric painter and etcher in aqua fortis, not wanting in genius. 
He studied at Rome, and returning to Spain executed fres» 
ooes, with littie saocees, in churches at Madrid and else* 
where. He became "pjntor de camara," or court painter, 
to the weak Charles lV« and vicious Ferdinand Vll. In 
numerous portraits of these kings and of members of the 
Spanish Bourbon family he made tiiem, perhaps with delib- 
erate malice— for in politics he was an ardent liberal— even 
more hideous thaa they were. His large lecture of Charles 
IV. and his family in the Madrid Qall^ is the best, but by 
no means an attractive example of his ssill, and is in parts, 
especially in the deteils of costume, not altogether imworthy 
of Velasquez, whom he sought to imitate. But his genius 
was chienv d^own in his etchings, in which, in a grotesque, 
and not always decent way, he lashed the vices and corrupt 
tion of his coimtry, and vented his hatred against its French 
invaders. The Sjpaniards are ver^ proud of Goya. The 
author of the '^Gmde to the Madnd Gallery" discovers in 
his works a union of the best qualities of Rembrandt, "Htian, 
Paul Veronese, Watteau, and Lancret! He was, no doubt, 
a powerful and original painter, and his touch is often mas- 
terly ; but he was incorrect in his drawing, and his color is 
frequently exaggerated and unnatural. His designs for the 
tapestries in the ro^rai palaces are generaUy weak and iU- 
dra wn y but they are interesting as representations of national 
manners and cdstimie. Gk)ya died in voluntary exile at Bor- 
deaux in 18^8, having left §pain disgusted with the political 
reaction which set in on the restoration of the Bourbons, and 
with the persecution of the best and most enlightened of his 
countrymen. His works have of late ^ears been much sought 
after, esspodaiij in France. His etdungii oonrfsting etaSfy 

IS 



336 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

of political caricatures (caprichos), scenes in the bull-ring, 
the horrors of war, etc., are rare. A new edition has re- 
cently been published of the '* Caprichos" from the worn-out 
plates. 

Goya may be considered the founder of the modem Span- 
ish school of painting, which has produced Fortuny, Madrazo, 
Palmaroli, and a number of other clever painters who have 
achieved a European reputation. It is not, however, in Spain, 
but in the private collections of London, Paris, and New 
York, that their principal works are to be found. Spaniards 
have little love or knowledge of art, and the high prices it is 
now the fashion to pay for Spanish pictures are beyond their 
means. 

The history of architecture in Spain is similar to that of 
France and other countries of northern Europe, with, how- 
ever, the essential difference that Moorish art in the Middle 
Ages attained in Spain as great an importance as in the East, 
and when combined with Christian art, a new style was 
formed, known by the name of Morisco or Mudejar, which 
is not met with out of the Spanish Peninsula, and is of great 
interest. 

Spanish architecture may be divided, after the prehistoric 
pericKi, and invasions of ^e Phoenicians and Carthaginians, 
m the following manner: 

1. Roman period, imtil the invasions of the Goths. 

%, Latin Byzantine style, fifth to end of tenth century. 

3. Moorish architecture, eighth to fifteenth century. 

4. Romanesque style, eleventh, twelfth, and part of thir- 
teenth century. 

§, Pointed architecture, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, 
mad part of sixteenth century. 

6. Mudejar style, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and 
part of sixteenth century. 

7. Renaissance or Plateresque style, GraBco-Roman, and 
Churrigueresque. 

Several of the inscriptions which have come down to us 
of the Roman period (see "Corpus Inscrip.," Vol. 11. , Emil 
Hiibner) mention different buildings of public utility and 
adornment which were in course of construction in Spain. 
The number which still remains is very great, and may be 
found in almost every province; many have, however, been 
sadly mutilated. The finest are undoubtedly the aqueduct 
at Segovia (oonstmcted of hu^ stones^ ana still used for 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 337 

carrying water to the town), the Bridge of Alcantara (Ea- 
tremadura), with its triumphal arch in the center and temple 
at one end, and the walls of Lugo and Astorga. The gen- 
eral structure of these monuments and their ornamentation 
are the same as those of ancient Rome: it is well known that 
the Romans imposed their art on the countries which came 
under their dominion. 

Two remarkable specimens exist of the Visigothic period : 
the church of San Roman de Homija (near Tore), 646, and 
San Juan de Banos (near Venta de Banos), 661. Although 
these churches have suffered much from later additions, they 
still retain a great part of their construction and jpart of the 
primitive building. A great number of fragments remaiii 
in Spain of this period. They must be exammed in ord^ to 
judge this architecture. Some are capitals of columns m Hm 
Cathedral of Cordova and some churches at Toledo, and dif« 
ferent friezes and fragments which have been applied to 
different uses at Toledo and Merida. The votive crowns 
found at Guarrazar, now at Cluny (Paris) and armory of 
Madrid, give an excellent idea of the ornamentation of the 
Visigoths. Several examples of architecture remain poste- 
rior to the Visigoths, and anterior to the Romanesque style 
of the eleventh century. The most important are the churches 
of Sta. Maria Karanco and St. Miguel de Lino, near OvIedOy 
Sta. Christina de Lena (Asturias), a very remarkable aped* 
men of Byzantine construction, and ^e churches of 8att 
Pedro and San Pablo, Barcelona. 

The invasion of the Arabs in 711 caused thdr a^diiteolnvs 
to extend itself in the Peninsula. Its adaptation to chorcbai 
and other buildings of the Christians created a aiew style, 
known as Mudejar. The finest specimen c^ Oriental ascbi- 
tecture in Spain is the mo6(][ue at Cordova (ninth centory). 
Byzantine models were copied there in the same manner ss 
at Jerusalem, Damascus, and Cairo. Hie small mosqas at 
Toledo (Cristo de la Luz) is of the same period, and part ci 
the church of Santiago de Penalva (Viereo). the<mly exaBi|kis 
which is known of ,a Christian church bwit in the MoatuAk 
style. 

During the eleventh and twelfth centuries this ardaHeol* 
ure underwent radical modifications in Spain, in the sams 
manner as in the East, and a new style arose which Is w&f 
different to the earlier one. No writers on this sabjed hsTS 
explained this transformation in the £ast in a satii^^sotory 
manner: it is not ea^ to stndy this traositk]!! in &pB^ for 



838 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

it coincides with the time in which the Spanish Moors were 
not rich or powerful enough to build large constructions, as 
they did in the thirteenth century, after the kings of Gra- 
nada had settled there. At this period of their art the forms 
of capitals, which partook of a Byzantine and classical form, 
changed. Tiles are used to decorate the walls, which are 
covered with an ornamentation in relief in stucco, in which 
are introduced inscriptions in Cufic and African characters ; 
the ceilings are decorated with inlaid woodwork and stalac- 
tical pendentives in stucco. This style ends with the con- 
quest of Granada, 1492. The Alhambra is the most impor- 
tant example of this architecture, and following it the Alcazar 
of Seville. 

Owing to the gradual conquests by the Christians of 
towns belonging to the Mohammedans, several of them 
continued to be inhabited by Moors, who kept their customs 
and religion. They were called Moriscos or Mudejares. 
The chief industries of tbe country were in their hands, and 
several churches and other buildings of importance w©re 
built by them. They accommodated their architecture, to 
European or Christian necessities, and created a new style 
(Mudejar), a mixture of Christian and Moorish art, which is 
only to be found in the Spanish Peninsula. The finest speci- 
men are of the fourteenth century. The religious construe- 
tionsof this period are remarkable for their brick-work in 
towers and apses, and fine wooden ceilings, ari;esonados. 
Examples exist at Toledo, Seville, and Granada. The in- 
teresting synagogues built by Moriscos are at Toledo and 
Segovia. As specimens of civil architecture, the finest are 
Oasade Pilatos (Seville), Palace of Mendoza (Guadalajara), 
Archbishop's Palace (AlcaldJ, Casa de Mesa (Toledo). This 
style continued in vogue during the greater part of the six- 
teenth century, although late Gothic was everywhere pre- 
dominant. A most striking exam^© in which the three 
■tyles— Moorish, Flamboyant, and Kenaissance — are com- 
tnned, is to be foimd in a chapel of the cathedral of Sigiienza. 

The Romanesque style of architecture was imported in 
the eleventh and twelfth centuries from France, even more 
directly than in other countries, owing to the immense influ- 
ence exercised by a large ntmiber of prelates and priests, who 
eame from Clunv and Cister, and the French princes and 
fomflies who settled in Spain. The general features of this 
arcMteoture are similar to those of France : the differences 
exist oiiiefly in the general plan o£ the churches rather than 



SPANISH ART, UTEBATUBB, AND SFOBT. 839 

in their construction and omament&tlon. The choirs in 
Spanish cathedrals are placed in the oentral nave^ a tradi* 
tional remembrance of the early basilica. In some localitiee, 
Segovia, Avila, and Yalladolid, some of these chnroheB have 
externa] cloisters, an Oriental or Itahan modificatiixi, whidi 
never occura la France or the north of Europe. Bomanesque 
examples are very numerous in Spain. Some, such as the 
doorway of the Cathedral of Santiago (GaHda), and the Old 
Cathedral (Salamanca), are not surpassed by any sunilar 
buildings in Europe. Specimens are only found in ue north- 
ern provinces, as the south was not conquered frcnn the 
Moors until the thirteenth century. Inteiestins examples 
exist in Asturias, Gblida, Oastile, Aragon, and Cataluna. 
The cloisters of Gerona and Tarragona are tmrivaled. C^ 
the many striking examples of Transiticm firom Romanesque 
to Early Pointe£lihe finest are the old oathedral ol Ledi 
the cathedrals of Tarragc«iaand Santiago, and ^e ooliegiate 
church of Tudela. 

The specimens of Pointed style in ^aaan present no other 
variety than the choirs in the centexs of the cathedrals. Al- 
though this style was imported from France early In tli^ 
thirteenth century, in the same manner as in Germany, Ro- 
manesque churches continued to be built, and Pointed €tfchi- 
tecture was only finally adopted at the end of the century. 
The finest cathedrals in Spam of this architecture are those 
of Toledo, Leon, and Burgos. A great number of civH and 
religious building of this style are to be met with in Spain, 
in which the art°student will find constant elements of study s 
it underwent the same modifications in Spain as in other 
countries, until it reached, in ^e fifteenth century, its latesl 
period, the Flamboyant style. This style lasts longer in 
Spain than in other countries, and acquires great importance. 
The cathedrals of Salamanca (la neuva) and Segovia, hoih 
built in late Gothic, were begun in the sixteenQi century, 
when in other parts of Europe and even in Spain itself Italian 
Renaissance models were largely imported. Spanish cathe- 
di*als are undoubtedly, with the exception of Italy, the mosi 
interesting in Europe; for although tney cannot compete m 
architectural details with those of France, they are vastly 
superior in regard to the objects they contain of ecclesiastical 
furniture of every kind — ^iron railings, carved stalls, mon« 
strances, church-plate, vestments, pictures, and septdchera. 
Toledo and Seville cathedrals are museums in their way. 

Italian models were copied in Spain fsom the end of the 



340 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

fifteenth century. The portals of Santa Crnz at Valladolid 
and Toledo are of this period. Gk)thic architecture contin- 
ued, however, for several years to alternate with this style. 
The oombination of these styles produced an important series 
of models known in Spain by the name of Plateresco. 

The revival of the fine arts coincided in Spain with the 
gfreatest power and richness of the country. The marriage 
of Ferdinand and Isabella united Castile, Aragon, and the 
kingdom of I^aples. The conquest of Granada completed 
the political unify of the country: the discoveries of Colum- 
bus, Cortes, and Pizarro brought riches from a new world, 
and the union with the House of Austria, the Flemish States, 
an immense power, which it enjoyed during the reign of 
tfie Emperor Charles V. Renaissance architecture is better 
lepresented in Spain than in any other country except Italy. 
In almost all towns of importance admirable examples of 
this style will be found. The finest are at Salamanca : the 
University, Santo Domingo, Casa de las Conchas, and Sal* 
inas, San MarcoB (Leon), Casa de Ayuntamiento (Seville), 
Valladolid, Saraoossa, Burgos, etc. 

The cathedral and palace of Charles V. (Granada) may 
be quoted as an example of pure GraBCo-Eoman style. Part 
of the Alcazar at Toledo belongs to this same period. The 
tendency to copy classical models increased daily. The Mon- 
astery of the Escorial may be considered the most important 
specimen of this school. In the seventeenth century the 
Borromenisco style was imported from Italy. The Pantheon 
at the Escorial is a good example. This architectural decay 
increased in Spain with great rapidity, and in no country did 
it reach to such an extravagant point. It lasted during the 
seventeenth and part of the eighteenth centuries. In Spain 
this style is called Churrigueresque, after the architect Chur- 
riguera. Examples will be foiind evervwhere. The Trans- 
parente (Cathedral of Toledo), retablos of San Esteban 
(Salamanca), Cartuja (Granada), and fagade of Hospicio 
(Madrid), may be considered the most remarkable. 

The creation of the Academy of San Fernando, the 
French architects who accompanied Philip V., and the 
efforts of Charles III. to favor classical studies, produced 
the same pretentious and classical reaction as in the rest of 
Europe. The Palace and Convent of Salesas (Madrid) are 
specimens of the first movement. The Museo and Observa- 
tory of Madrid belong to the end of the last and beginning 
of the present century. 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 341 

II 

SPANISH LITERATURE 

The history of Spanish literature commences at the end 
of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century, when 
the dialect emerged from the corrupted Latin, and became 
an independent language capable of producing literary works. 

The origin of the language may be traced to the writers 
of the sixth, seventh, to the eleventh century. They wrote 
in the more or less barbarous Latin of the period. The most 
important authors of this time were San Isidoro and his 
pupils, St. Eugenio, St. Ildefonso, St. Eulogio, Alvaro, San- 
som, Pero Alonso, and Oliva. The writers of the Roman 
period, Porcio Latro, Seneca, Lucan, Martial, Pomponius 
Mela, Collumela, Silius Italicus, and Quintillian, though 
born in Spain, must be numbered among classical authorSc 
The Spanish language is derived in a direct manner from the 
Latin, though it has been enriched by a great number of 
words belonging to the different nations which have occupied 
the whole or part of the Peninsula. Iberian, Punic, Greeks 
Visigothic, Hebrew, and Arabic words are met with in large 
numbers. The abundance of these last has induced some 
critics to infer that the origin of the language is Semitic, but 
its grammatical structure is undoubtedly Latin. The abun- 
dance of Oriental words does not influence its organization, 
or produce any further result than to add nouns to the 
language. 

Spanish literature is generally divided into three groups 
— twelfth century to end of fifteenth; sixteenth to seven- 
teenth; eighteenth to the present day. 

It is highly probable that Spanish poetry began by com- 
memorating the heroic deeds of Pelayo and other heroes who 
fought against the Moors; but we can trace nothing to that 
period. The earliest compositions which have reached us 
are, a "Charter of Oviedo," 1145 (the "Charter of Aviles," 
1155, has been proved to be a forgery), and two poems on 
the Cid, the favorite hero of popular Spanish poetry, 1040- 
1099. The best of these poems is the one beginning: El mio 
Cid (vide Ticknor). Though incomplete, it constitutes a real 
epic poem, and if examined in detail appears to have been 
written at the beginning of the twelfth century. Three con- 
temporary works have reached uss "La Vida de Santa Maria 



342 HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

Egipciaca," "El Libro de los tres reyes d' Orient," and **Los 
tres reyes magos." The first two were evidently written 
under a French influence; **Los tres reyes magos" was 
written for recital in a church. 

The same intellectual development appears in Spain in 
the thirteenth century as in Italy and France. The univer- 
sities of Palencia and Salamanca contributed toward it. The 
tendency of the writers of this period is to imitate classic au- 
thors. A priest, Gonzalo de Berceo, is the first poet of any 
importance in the thirteenth century, 1230 : he wrote a large 
number of verses on religious subjects. His poem to the 
Virgin contains some poetical passages. Two poems ap- 
peared shortly afterward, "El tdbro de Apollonio" and "El 
Libro de Alexandre," by J. Lorenzo Segura, adapted from 
the history of Alexandre Le Grand, by Chatillon. The poem 
^'Feman Gonzalez" is of the same period: it is free from for- 
eign influence* Prose is improved at the beginniQg of the 
century by the translation from Latin of the "Fuero Juzgo," 
and other historical and didactical works. 

Don Alonso el Sabio, 1221-1284, absorbs the scientific and 
literary life of Spain during his time: ^e most eminent ci 
his countrymen, Spaniards, Jews and Moors, ^thered round 
him. So many works have appeared under his name that it 
is incredible they should all have been written b^r him. Prob- 
ably only the poems, ^'Las Qaerellas,'* written in the Castil- 
ian dialect, are his. An extensive Universal History, the 
first written in Europe in a vernacular language; the '^Leyes 
de Partidas," a series of legal works; **E1 Saber de Astrono- 
mia," a cyclopedia of this science as it stood at that time: 
the "Cantigas," a poem containing upward of four hundred 
compositions to the Virgin, written m the Galician dialect 
and in the Provengal style, and several other works, have 
passed hitherto as proceeding from his pen. 

Don Sancho el Bravo, a son of Don Alonso, wrote the 
"Lucidario" and "Libro de los Castigos," a moral treatise 
dedicated to his son. The "Libro del Tesopo" and "La Gran 
Conquista de Ultramar" were translated at his instigation 
from the Latin. The Infante, Don Juan Manuel, 1282, a 
nephew of Don Alonso, wrote several works on different 
subjects. The finest is the interesting collection of fables, 
"El Conde Lucanor." They are earher than the Decame- 
rone or Canterbury Tales. 

Spanish poetry revived in the fourteenth century. The 
arcbpriest of Hita» l330-134a« wrote thousands of verses on 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 343 

different subjects. Rabbi Don Santob, 1350, a Spanish Jew, 
dedicated to his friend, King Peter the Cruel, his principal 
poetical works. The best is on the '*Danza de la Muerte," a 
favorite subject of that time. Pero Lopez de Ayala, 1372- 
1407, who wrote the "Rimado de Palacio," and Rodrigo 
Yanez, the author of the "Poema de Alonso XI.," end the 
series of poets of the fourteenth century. Romances of chiv- 
alry became popular in Spain in the fifteenth century : their 
popularity lasted until the sixteenth, when Cervantes pub- 
lished his "Don Quixote." "Amadis de Gaula" was the first 
work of importance of this kind; "Palmerin de Oliva," etc., 
follow it. The Coronicas belong to this period. They are 
semi-historical narratives, in which the leading events of 
each reign are described. 

Provengal style was introduced into Spain early in the 
fifteenth century. It became very popular owing to the pa- 
tronage of Don Juan II., 1407-1454. The most important 
courtiers imitated the king's example, and poems have 
reached us by Don Alvaro de Luna, Don Alonso de Car- 
tagena and others. The Marquis of Villena and Macias be- 
long to this period. Fernan Perez de Guzman wrote at this 
time his "Livros de los claros varones de Espana," and JuaB 
de Mena, an excellent poet, his "Laberynto" and "Dialogo 
delos siete Pecados mortales." The last poet of the reign of 
Don Juan II. is the Marquis of Santillana. Several wrote 
late in the century: the most excellent among them being 
Jorge Manrique, whose ''Coplas" on the death of his father 
are admirable. ITovels begin at this time, generally copied 
from Italian models. The finest is "La Celestina," written 
in acts like a drama, one of the best works in Spanish litera- 
ture. 

Romances or ballads are the most original form of Span- 
ish poetry. They constitute the popular epic poem, and are 
the most spontaneous productions of the Spanish language. 

The revival of literature coincides in Spain with the period 
of its greatest power and prosperity. The early part of the 
sixteenth century is called "el Siglo de oro." An Italian in- 
fluence is predominant. Castillejo keeps to the earher style 
in his charming compositions: "Dialogo entre el autor y su 
pluma, ' ' and ' ' Sermones de Amores. ' ' Boscan and Garcilaso 
were the first to introduce the Italian measure into Spanish 
verse. Some poets wrote in both these styles. Gregorio 
Sylvestre is among the best of them; an excellent poet, but 
very little known. 



844 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

Gaxcilaso was the earliest lyrical poet, 1503-1636. His 
verses are pure in style, in the manner of Virgil and Horace. 
His life is interesting: he fought by the side of Charles V., 
and was killed at the assault of the fortress of Frejus (Nice). 
One of bis contemporaries, Hurtado de Mendoza, a soldier 
and statesman, popularized classical studies. His best works 
are the "Rebellion delos Moriscos" and the well-known *'La- 
zarillo de Tonnes." The classical style is now universally 
adopted in 8pain. Fray Luis de Leon was undoubtedly the 
best poet of wis period. His ode on the "Ascension' ' and bis 
*'Poema a la Virgen" may certainly be reckoned among the 
best compositions in the language. Several poets of an infe- 
rior order belong to the sixteenth century. Cesina, Acuna, 
Figueroa, Medrano, La Torre, Mesa and Alcazar are among 
the best. Their worfoi are clever in parts, but are generally 
unequal. This characteristic becomes a leading feature in 
Spanish poetry. At the end of the seventeenth century lyrics 
began to decay, but no author carried affectation and exag« 
geration to such a height as Gongora, 1561-1627 : a gifted 
(>oet, full of charm in his simple compositions (vide traneda- 
tions by Archdeacon Churton), though most ooscure in his 
"Soledades" and "Polifemo. " This style was called in Spain 
culteranismOy and not even the best dramatic authors of the 
seventeenth century were free horn its defects. The imitators 
of Gongora continued until the eighteenth centnry, although 
here and there a poet like Bioja tned to check the movement. 

Epio poetry in Spain is inferior to the dramatic and Ijrrical 
styles. The specimens which exist are cold and devoid of 
inspiration. "El Monserrate," by Virues; "La Cristiada,'* 
by Hojeda; "La Yida de San Jose," by Yaldivieso, and 
"El Bernardo," by Balbuena, may be quoted as examples. 
"La Araucana," by Ercilla, contains some poetical passages, 
but in genera] is hardly more than a historical narrative. 
"La Gatomaquia," by Lope de Vega, though a burlesque, is 
considered by many critics the best epic poem in the Spanish 
language. 

Dramatic literature unites, perhaps, the highest condi- 
tions of originality and power. Its earliest productions are 
the liturgical representations of the Middle Ages, "Misterios'* 
or "Autos." Although works of this kind are mentioned as 
early as the thirteenth century, the first which have a dis- 
tinct dramatic character are the "Coplas" de Mingo Revulgo 
and "El Dialogo entre el Amor y un vie jo." These compo- 
sitions were written imder the reign of Henry lY. At the 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 345 

latter part of the fifteenth century a series of dramatic works 
already existed. Juan de la Encina began the history of the 
Spanish drama. Lucas Fernandez was a contemporary writer, 
and shortly afterward Gil Vicente. Torres Naharro, 1517, 
published his "Propaladia," which contains eight comedies. 
Lope de Rueda founded the modern school, and he is imi- 
tated and improved by his followers. The drama does not 
attain its highest importance until Lope de Vega (1 562-1635), 
the most prolific of Spanish poets. He tells us he had writ- 
tea fifteen hundred plays, without counting '* Autos" and 
**Entremeses." Cervantes says that forty companies of ac- 
tors existed at this time in Madrid alone, consisting of no less 
than one thousand actors. In 1636, three hundred compa- 
nies of actors acted in different parts of Spain. Lope de 
Vega is rather unequal as a dramatic author; but "El mejor 
Alcalde el rey," "La Estrella de Sevilla," "La dama boba," 
"La moza de cantaro," entitle him to rank among the best 
European dramatists. Three authors share Lope's glory, 
Tirso, Calderon and Alarcon. 

No Spanish dramatist has surpassed Tirso in his facility 
of treating the most varied subjects in admirable versifica- 
tion. His comedy of "Don Gil de las calzas verdes" is as 
good as his dramas of "El Rey Don Pedro en Madrid, " "El 
condenado por desconfiado," or "El convidado de piedra." 
The popular type of Don Juan is taken from this drama. 
Alarcon is undoubtedly the most philosophical Spanish dram- 
atist. His comedy, "Las paredes oyen," is admirable, and 
"La verdad sospechosa," so much admired by Corneille, as 
he tells us himself, when he took the plot for his "Menteur." 
Calderon is the most popular dramatic author. He idealizes 
more than his predecessors, and his genius embraces the most 
varied subjects. His comedies are charming; as examples, 
"La dama duende" and "Casa con dos puertas" are among 
the best. "El medico de su honra' ' is full of dramatic power, 
and nothing can be more poetical than "La Vida es sueno." 
(Vide MacCarthy's translations.) The best imitators of the 
great dramatists are Rojas and Moreto: "Garcia del Casta- 
nar" by the former, and "Desden con el Desden" of the 
latter, are equal to the dramas of the great masters. 

The earliest Spanish novels are "Lazarillo de Tormes," 
by Hurtado de Mendoza, and the "Diana Enamorada," by 
Monte Mayor. They are followed by "El Picaro Guzman 
de Alfarache" and "El Escudero Marcos de Obregon," by 
Aleman and Espinel. A great number of novels were writ- 



346 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

ten in the following century, but were all eclipsed by Cer- 
vantes' ''Don Quixote," which is too well known to need 
any comment. 

Several authors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
cultivated different literary styles. Quevedo is the most re- 
markable of them. He was the quaintest and most original 
of humorists. He wrote a number of works of real merit, 
none of which has been so popular as his '*Satiras" in prose 
and verse. 

Political and moralist writers of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries are very numerous. Of these Guevara, Sta. 
Teresa, Fray Luis de Granada, Gracian, Saavedra Fajardo, 
Mariana, Morales, Zurita, and Solis are the most remarkable. 

The end of the seventeenth century was the worst period 
of Spanish literature. Philip V., the first king of the House 
of Bourbon, 1700, did his utmost to improve the intellectual 
culture of the country. The BibHoteca Real was founded in 
1711, and the Academias de la Lengua, Historia, and Bellas 
Artes in 1714 ; several literary reviews also appeared. The 
best poets of this period are Antonio de Toledo and Gerardo 
Lobo. The only productions, however, of any literary merit 
are the critical works of Flores, Masdeu, Mayans and others. 
During the reign of Charles III., 1769-1788, Melendez wi*ote 
some tolerable verses. He is followed by Fr. Diego Gon- 
zalez, Cienfuegos, Nicolas de Moratin and others. The most 
original writers of the end of the eighteenth century are, how- 
ever, undoubtedly Leandro Moratin and Ramon. The two 
comedies, ''El Si de las ninas" and "El Cafe," by the for- 
mer, are charming, and the "Sainetes," by De la Cruz, in 
the manner of Plautus, continue to be very popular in Spain. 

Spanish literature of the present century possesses no defi- 
nite character, although several writers can bear comparison 
with the best Spanish authors of other periods. Every school 
and style has been copied: Byron, Schiller, Goethe, Victor 
Hugo, and Dumas. The earliest author of any importance 
is Quintana, a correct and inspired poet. His odes on "La 
Imprenta," "Panteon del Escorial," and "Batalla de Tra- 
falgar" are very good. Martinez de la Rosa, Lista, and Ni- 
casio Gallegos form a group of able versifiers. Espronceda 
is a constant imitator of Byron, although his legend of *'E1 
Estudiante de Salamanca" is original, and a very fine com- 
^ — position. Zorrilla is the best representative of the romantic 
school of 1830-40 : his works are sometimes unequal, and his 
legends are hia best lyrical compositions. His fijiest dramas 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPOBT. 847 

are "Don Juan Tenorio" and *'E1 Zapatero y el Rey." The 
** Romances" and drama of *'Don Alvaro de Luna," by the 
Duke of Rivas, have been very popular; but no author is so 
deservingly so as Breton de los Herreres, an excellent writer, 
who has left behind nearly one hundred comedies, some of 
which, "Marcela," "Muerete y veras," "El pelo de la 
dehesa," etc., ar© perfect in their way. 



Ill 
SPORT 

The Bull-fight, or rather Bull Feast (Fiesta de Toros), Is 
a modern sport. Bulls were killed in ancient amphitheaters, 
but the present modus operandi is modern, and, however 
based on Roman institutions, is indubitably a thing devised 
by the Moors of Spain, for those in Africa have neither the 
sport, the ring, nor the recollection. The principle was the 
exhibition of horsemanship, courage and dexterity with the 
lance, for in the early bull-fight the animal was attacked by 
gentlemen armed only with the Rejon, a short projectile 
spear about four feet long. This was taken from the origi- 
nal Iberian spear, the Sparus of Sil. Ital. (viii. 523), the 
Lancea of Livy (xxxiv. 15), and is seen in the hands of the 
horsemen of the old Romano-Iberian coinage. To be a good 
rider and lancer was essential to the Spanish Caballero. 
This original form of bull-fight (now only given on grand 
occasions) is called a Fiesta Real. Such a one Philip IV. 
exhibited on the Plaza Mayor of Madrid before Charles I. oi 
England; Ferdinand VII. in 1833, as the ratification of the 
Juramento, the swearing allegiance to Isabella II. ; and Al- 
fonso XII., on his marriages, January 23, 1878, and No- 
vember 29, 1879. 

These Fiestas Reales form the coronation ceremonial of 
Spain, and the Caballeros en Plaza represent our champions. 
Bulls were killed, but no beef eaten ; as a banquet was never 
a thing of Iberia. 

The final conquest of the Moors, and the subsequent ces- 
sation of the border chivalrous habits of Spaniards, and espe- 
cially the accession of Philip V., proved fatal to this ancient 
usage of Spain. The spectacle, which had withstood the in- 
fluence of Isabella the Catholic, and had beaten the Pope's 
Bulls, bowed before the despotism of fashion^ and by becom- 



848 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

ing the game of professionals instead of that of gentlemen it 
was stripped of its chivalrous character, and degenerated into 
the vulgar butchery of low mercenary bull-fighters, just as 
did the rings and tournaments of chivalry into those of 
ruffian pugilists. 

The Spanish bulls have been immemorially famous. Her- 
cules, that renowned cattle-fancier, was lured into Spain by 
the lowing of the herds of Geryon, the ancestor (se dice) of 
the Duque de Osuna. The best bulls in Andalusia are bred 
by Cabrera at Utrera, in the identical pastures where Ger- 
yon's herds were pastured and *' lifted" by the demigod, 
whence, according to Strabo (iii. 169), they were obliged, 
after fifty days' feeding, to be driven off from fear of burst- 
ing from fat. Some of the finest Castilian bulls, such as ap- 
pear at Madrid, are bred on the Jarama, near Aranjuez. 

Bull fights are extremely expensive, costing from one thou- 
sand five hundred dollars to two thousand dollars apiece; 
accordingly, except in the chief capitals and Andalusia, 
they are only got up now and then, on great church fes- 
tivals and upon royal and public rejoicings. As Andalu- 
sia is the headquarters of the ring, and Seville the capital, 
the alma mater of the tauromachists of the Peninsula, the 
necessity of sending to a distance for artists and animals in- 
creases the expense. The prices of admittance, compared to 
the wages of labor in Spain, are high. 

The profits of the bull-fight are usually destined for the 
support of hospitals, and, certainly, the fever and the frays 
subsequent to the show provide patients as well as funds. 
The Plaza is usually under the superintendence of a society 
of noblemen and gentlemen, called Maestranzas, instituted 
in 1562, by Philip II., in the hope of improving the breed of 
Spanish horses and men-at-arms. 

The first thing is to secure a good place beforehand, by 
sending for a Boletin de Sombra, a "ticket in the shade." 
The prices of the seats vary according to position ; the best 
places are on the northern side, in the shade. The transit of 
the sun over the Plaza, the zodiacal progress into Taurus, is 
certainly not the worst calculated astronomical observation 
in Spain : the line of shadow defined on the arena is marked 
by a gradation of prices. The sun of torrid, tawny Spain, 
on which it once never set, is not to be trifled with, and the 
summer season is selected because pastures are plentiful, 
which keep the bulls in good condition, and the days are 
longer. The fights take place in the afternoon, when the 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 349 

sun is less vertical. The different seats and prices are de- 
tailed in the bills of the play, with the names of the combat- 
ants, and the colors and breeds of the bulls. 

The day before the fight the bulls destined for the spec- 
tacle are brought to a site outside the town. No amateur 
should fail to ride out to the pastures from whence the cattle 
(ganado) are selected. The encierro, the driving them from 
this place to the arena, is a service of danger, but is ex- 
tremely picturesque and national. No artist or aficionado 
should omit attending ifc. The bulls are enticed by tame 
oxen, cabestros, into a road which is barricaded on each 
side, and then are driven full speed by the mounted conoce- 
dores into the Plaza. It is so exciting a spectacle that the 
poor who cannot afford to go to the bull-fight risk their lives 
and cloaks in order to get the front places, and the best 
chance of a stray poke en passant. 

The next afternoon (Sunday is usually the day) all the 
world crowds to the Plaza de toros; nothing, when the tide 
is full, can exceed the gayety and sparkle of a Spanish public 
going, eager and dressed in their best, to the fight. All the 
streets or open spaces near the outside of the arena are a 
spectacle. The bull-fight is to Madrid what a review is to 
Paris, and the Derby to London. Sporting men now put on 
all their majo-finery ; the distinguished ladies wear on these 
occasions white lace mantillas; a fan, abanico, is quite neces- 
sary, as it was among the Romans. The aficionados and 
*'the gods" prefer the pit, tendido, the lower range, in order, 
by being nearer, that they may not lose the nice traits of 
tauromaquia. The Plaza has a language to itself, a dialect 
peculiar to the ring. The coup d'oeil on entrance is unique; 
the classical scene bursts on the foreigner in all the glory of 
the south, and he is carried back to the Coliseum under Com- 
modus. The president sits in the center box. The proceed- 
ings open with the procession of the performers, the mounted 
spearmen, picadores; then follow the chulos, the attendants 
on foot, who wear their silk cloaks, capas de durancillo, in a 
peculiar manner, with the arms projecting in front; and, 
lastly, the slayers, the espadas, and the splendid mule-team, 
el tiro, which is destined to carry off the slain. The profes- 
sion of bull-fighter is very low-caste in Spain, although the 
champions are much courted by some young nobles, like the 
British blackguard boxers, and are the pride and darlings of 
all the lower classes. Those killed on the spot were formerly 
denied the bunaJ rites, oa dying without confession, but a 



350 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

priest is now in attendance with Su Magestad (the conse- 
crated Host), ready to give always spiritual assistance to a 
dying combatant. 

When all the bull-fighting company have advanced and 
passed the president, a trumpet sounds ; the president throws 
the key of the cell of the bull to the alguacil or policeman, 
which he ought to catch in his feathered hat. The differ- 
ent performers now take their places as fielders do at a 
cricket match. The bull -fight is a tragedy in three acts, 
lasts about twenty minutes, and each consists of precisely 
the same routine. From six to eight bulls are usually killed 
during each '*funcion"; occasionally another is conceded 
to popluar clamor, which here will take no denial. 

When the door of the cell is opened, the public curiosity 
to see the first rush out is intense ; and as none knows whether 
the bull will behave well or ill, all are anxious to judge of 
his character from the way he behaves upon first enter- 
ing the ring. The animal, turned from his dark cell into 
glare and crowd, feels the novelty of his position; but is 
happily ignorant of his fate, for die he must, however skillful 
or brave his fight. This death does not diminish the sustained 
interest of the spectators as the varied chances in the progress 
of the acts offer infinite incidents and unexpected combina- 
tions. In the first of the three acts the picadores are the 
chief performers; three of them are now drawn up, one 
behind the other, to the right at the tablas, the barrier be- 
tween the arena and spectators ; each sits bolt upright on his 
Rosinante, with his lance in his rest, and as valiant as Don 
Quixote. They wear the broad-brimmed Thessalian hat; 
their legs are cased with iron and leather, which gives a 
heavy look ; and the right one, which is presented to the bull, 
is the best protected. This greave is termed la mona — the 
more scientific name is gregoriana, from the inventor, Don 
Gregorio Gallo — just as we say a spencer, from the noble 
earl. The spear, garrocha, is defensive rather than offen- 
sive; the blade ought not to exceed one inch; the sheath- 
ing is, however, pushed back when the picador anticipates 
an awkward customer. When the bull charges, the picador, 
holding the lance under his right arm, pushes to the right, 
and turns his horse to the left; the bull, if turned, passes on 
to the next picador. This is called recibir, to receive the 
point. If a bull is turned at the first charge, he seldom 
comes up well again. A bold bull is sometimes cold and 
shy at first, but grows warmer by being punished. Those 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 351 

who are very active, those who paw the ground, are not 
much esteemed; they are hooted by the populace, and exe- 
crated as goats, little calves, cows, which is no compliment to 
a bull ; and, however imskilled in bucolics, all Spaniards are 
capital judges of bulls in the ring. Such animals as show 
the white feather are loathed, as depriving the pubhc of l^eir 
just rights, and are treated with insult, and, moreover, 
soundly beaten as they pass near the tablas, by forests of 
sticks, la cachiporra. The stick of the elegant majo, when 
going to the biill-fight, is sui generis, and is called la chivata; 
taper, and between four and five feet long, it terminates in 
a lump or knob, while the top is forked, into which the 
thumb is inserted. This chivata is peeled, like the rods of 
Laban, in alternate rings, black and white or red. The 
lower classes content themselves with a common shillalah; 
one with a knob at the end is preferred, as administering a 
more impressive whack. While a slow bull is beaten and 
abused, a murderous bull, dure chocante carnicero y pega- 
joso, who kills horses, upsets men, and clears the plaza, 
becomes deservedly a imiversal favorite; the conquering heio 
is hailed with "Viva toro! viva toro! bravo toro!" Long 
life is wished to the poor beast by those who know he must 
be killed in ten minutes. 

The horses destined for the plaza are of no value; 
this renders Spaniards, who have an eye chiefly to what 
a thing is worth, indifferent to their sufPerings. If yott 
remark how cruel it is to "let that poor horse stru^le in 
death's agonies," they will say, "Ah que! na vale na" 
("Oh I he is worth nothing"). When his tail quivers in the 
last death-struggle, the spasm is remarked as a jest, mira 
que cola ! The torture of the horse is the blot of the bull- 
fight : no lover of the noble beast can witness his sufferings 
without disgust; the fact of these animals being worth noth- 
ing in a money point of view increases the danger to the 
rider; it renders them slow, difficult to manage, and very 
unlike those of the ancient combats, when the finest steeds 
were chosen, quick as lightning, turning at touch, and escap* 
ing the deadly rush: the eyes of these poor animals, who 
would not otherwise face the bull, are bound with a handker- 
chief like criminals about to be executed ; thus they await 
blindfold the fatal rip which is to end their life of misery. 
If only wounded, the gash is sewed up and stopped with 
tow, as a leak! and life is prolonged for new agonies. When 
the poor brute is dead at last, his carcass is str^>ped as in 



S52 • HISTORY OF SPAIN, 

a battle. The high-class Spaniard admits and regrets the 
cruelty to the horses, but justifies it as a necessity. The 
bull, says he, is a tame, almost a domestic animal, and 
would never fight at all unless first roused by the sight of 
blood. The wretched horse is employed for this purpose as 
a corpus vile ; and the bull, having gored him once or twice, 
becomes "game." 

The picadores are subject to hairbreadth escapes and 
severe falls : few have a sound rib left. The bull often tosses 
horse and rider in one run ; and when the victims fall on the 
ground, exhausts his rage on his prostrate enemies, till lured 
away by the glittering cloaks of the chulos, who come to the 
assistance of the fallen picador. These horsemen often show 
marvelous skill in managing to place their horses as a ram- 
part between them and the bull. When these deadly strug- 
gles take place, when life hangs on a thread, the amphithe- 
ater is peopled with heads. Every expression of anxiety, 
eagerness, fear, horror, and delight is stamped on speaking 
countenances. These feelings are wrought up to a pitch 
when the horse, maddened with wounds and terror, plunging 
in the death-struggle, the crimson streams of blood streaking 
his sweat-whitened body, flies from the infuriated bull, still 
pursuing, still goring : then is displayed the nerve, presence 
of mind, and horsemanship of the undismayed picador. It 
is, in truth, a piteous sight to see the poor dying horses tread- 
ing out their entrails, yet saving their riders unhurt. The 
miserable steed, when dead, is dragged out, leaving a bloody 
furrow on the sand. The picador, if wounded, is carried out 
and forgotten — los muertos y idos, no tienen amigos (the 
dead and absent have no friends)— a new combatant fills the 
gap, the battle rages, he is not missed, fresh incidents arise, 
and no time is left for regret or reflection. The bull bears 
on his neck a ribbon, la devisa ; this is the trophy which is 
most acceptable to the querida of a buen torero. The bull 
is the hero of the scene, yet, like Milton's Satan, he is fore- 
doomed and without reprieve. Nothing can save him from 
the certain fate which awaits all, whether brave or cowardly. 
The poor creatures sometimes endeavor in vain to escape, 
and leap over the barrier (barrera), into the tendido, among 
the spectators, upsetting sentinels, water-sellers, etc., and 
creating a most amusing hubbub. The bull which shows 
this craven turn — un tunante cobarde picaro — is not deemed 
Worthy of a noble death, by the sword. He is baited, pulled 
down, and stabbed in the spine. A bull that flinches from 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 3ft3 

death is scouted by all Spaniards, who neither beg for their 
own life near spare that of a foe. 

Afe the signal of the president, and sound of a trumpet. 
the aeoond act commences with the chulos. This word 
^u]o signifies, in the Arabic, a lad, a clown, as at our cir- 
cus. They are picked young men, who commence in these 
parts their tauromachian career. The "duty of this light di- 
vision is to draw off the bull from the picador when endan- 
gered, which they do with their colored cloaks; their address 
and agility are surprising, they skim over the sand like glit- 
teriDff humming-birds, scarcely touching the earth. They 
are OTessed, k lo majo, in short breeches, and without gait- 
ers, just like Figaro in the opera of the "Barbiere de Sevilla. '* 
Their hair is tied into a knot behind, mono, and inclosed in 
^e once universal silk net, the redecilla — the identical reticu- 
lum — of which so many instances are seen on ancient Etrus- 
can vases. No bull-fighter ever arrives at the top of his pro- 
fession without first excelling as a chulo (apprentice), then 
he begins to be taught how to entice the bull, Uamar al toro, 
and to learn his mode of attack, and how to parry it. The 
most dangerous moment is when these chulos venture out 
mto the middle of the plaza, and are followed by the bull to 
the barrier, in which there is a small ledge, on which they 
place their foot and vault over, and a narrow slit in the board- 
ing, through which they slip. Their escapes are marvelous; 
they seem really sometimes, so close is the run, to be helped 
over the fence by the bull's horns. Occasionally some curi- 
ous suertes are exhibited by chulos and expert toreros, which 
do not strictly belong to the regular drama, such as the suerte 
de la capa, where the bull is braved with no other defense but 
a cloak : another, the salto tras cuerno, when the performer, 
as the bull lowers his head to toss him, places his foot be- 
tween his horns and is lifted over him. The chulos, in the 
second act, are the sole performers; another exclusive part 
fe to place small barbed darts, banderillas, which are orna- 
mented with cut paper of different colors, on each side of the 
neck of the bull. The banderilleros go right up to him, hold- 
ing the arrows at the shaft's end, and pointing the barbs at 
^e bull ; just when the animal stoops to toss them, they dart 
them into his neck and shp aside. The service appears to 
be more dangerous than it is, but it requires a quick eye, a 
Kght hand and foot. The barbs should be placed exactly on 
each side — a pretty pair, a good match— buenos pares. Some- 
times these arrows are provided with crackers, which, by 



864 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

means of a detonating powder, explode the moment they are 
affixed in the neck, banderillas de fuego. The agcmy of 1^ 
tortured animal frequently makes him bound &e a kid^, to 
the frantic delight or the people. A very clever Ibanderi&ro 
will sometimes seat himself in a chair, wait for the bull's ap- 
proach, plant the arrows in his neck, and slip away, leaving 
the chair to be tossed into the air. This feat is uncommon, 
and gains immense applause. 

The last trumpet now sounds; the arena is cleared fc^ 
the third act ; the espada, the executioner, the man of death, 
stands before his victim alone, and thus concentrates in him- 
self an interest previously fnttered among the number of 
combatants. On entering, he addresses the president, and 
tiirows his montera, his cap, to the ground, and swears he 
will do his duty. In his right hand he holds a long straight 
Toledan blade, la spada; in his left he waves the muleta, the 
red flag, the engano, the lure, which ought not (so Romero 
laid down) to be so large as the standard of a religious brother^ 
hood (oof radia), nor so small as a lady's pocket-handkerchief 
(panuelito de senorita): it should be about a vard sauare. 
The color is red, because that best irritates the bull and con- 
ceals blood. There is alwajrs a spare matador, in case of ac- 
cidents, which may happen in the best reg^ilated bull-flghts; 
he is called media espada, or sobresaliente. The espada (el 
diestro, the cunning in fence in olden books) advances to tne 
bull, in order to entice him toward him — citarlo 4 la suerte^ 
4 la jurisdiccion del engano — to subpoena him, to get his head 
into chancery, as our nng would say; he next rapidly studies 
his character, plays with him a little, cdlows him to run once 
or twice on the muleta, and then prepares for the coup de 
grace. There are several sorts of buUs — ^levantados, the oold 
and rushing; parados, the slow and sly; aplomados, the 
heavy and leaden. The bold are the easiest to kill; they 
rush, shutting their eyes, right on to the lure or flag. The 
worst of all are the sly bulls; when they are marrajos, cun- 
ning and not running straight, when they are revueltos. 
when they stop in their charge and run at the man insteau 
of the flag, they are most dangerous. The espada^ who is 
long killing his bull, or shows the white feather, is insulted 
by the jeers of the impatient populace; he nevertheless re- 
mains cool and coUected, in proportion as the spectators and 
bull are mad. There are many suertes or ways of kiliing 
the bull ; the principal is la suerte de f rente — ^the espada re- 
^selves the chaii{e on ins sword« lo mato de un redbido. The 



SPANISH ART, LITERATURE, AND SPORT. 355 

volaple, or half -volley, is beautiful, but dangerous; the mata- 
dor takes him by advancing, corriendoselo. A firm hand, 
eye, and nerve form the essence of the art ; the sword enters 
jnst between the left shoulder and the blade. In nothing is 
the real fancy so fastidious as in the exact nicety of the plac- 
ing this death-wound ; when the thrust is true — buen estoque 
— death is instantaneous, and the bull, vomiting forth blood, 
drops at the feet of his conqueror, who, drawing the sword, 
waves it in triumph over the fallen foe. It is indeed the tri- 
umph of knowledge over brute force ; all that was fire, fury, 
passion, and life, falls in an instant, still forever. 

The team of mules now enter, glittering with flags, and 
tinkling with bells, whose gay decorations contrast with the 
stern cruelty and blood ; the dead bull is carried off at a rapid 
gallop, which always delights the populace. The espada 
wipes the hot blood from his sword, and bows with admir- 
able sangfroid to the spectators, who throw their hats into 
the arena, a compliment which he returns by throwing them 
back again. 

When a bull will not run at all at the picador, or at the 
muleta, he is called a toro abanto, and the media luna, the 
half-moon, is called for; this is the cruel ancient Oriental 
mode of houghing the cattle (Joshua xi. 6). The instrument 
is the Iberian bident — a sharp steel crescent placed on a long 
pole. The cowardly blow is given from behind; and when 
the poor beast is crippled, an assistant, the cachetero, pierces 
the spinal marrow with his cachete — puntilla, or pointed dag- 
ger — with a traitorous stab from behind. This is the usual 
method of slaughtering cattle in Spain. To perform all these 
operations (el desjarretar) is considered beneath the dignity 
of the matadores or espadas; some of them, however, will 
kill the bull by plunging the point of their sword in the 
vertebrae, el descabellar — the danger gives dignity to the 
difficult feat. The identical process obtains in each of the 
fights that follow. After a short collapse, a fresh object 
raises a new desire, and the fierce sport is renewed through 
eight repetitions; and not till darkness covers the heavens 
do the mob retire to sacrifice the rest of the night to BacchuB 
and Venus, with a passing homage to the knife. 



APPENDIX 
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES 



NO. I 

Carthaginian Domination in Spain 338 to 200 B.C. 

Roman Domination 200 B.C. to 414 A.D. 

Visigothic Domination 414 A.D. to 711 A.D. 



Visigothic Kings 

A.D. 

Ataulfo ; 414, D. 417 

Sigerico 417 

Walia 420 

Teodoredo 451 

Turismnndo 454 

Teodorico 466 

Eurico 483 

This king, after conquering the 
Snevi and other races, Is con- 
sidered the founder of the mon- 
archy. 

Alarico D. 505 

Gesaleico 510 

Amalarico 531 

Teudis 548 

Tendiselo 549 

Agila 554 

Atanagildo 567 

Liuva I 572 

Leovigildo 586 

After destroying the barbari- 
ans that still remained in the 
country, he was the first king 
who ruled over the whole of the 
Peninsula. 

Recaredo 1 601 

Summoned the 3d Council of 
Toledo, renounced Arianism,and 
became the first Catholic king of 
Spain. 

Liuva II 603 

Witerico 610 

Gundemaro 612 

Sisebuto 621 

Recaredo II 621 

Suintila 631 

Sisenando 635 

Tuiga 640 

Chindasvinto 650 

Recesvinto 672 

Wamba 680 

Ervigio ' 687 

Egica 701 

Witiza 709 

Don Rodrigo 711 

The Moors entered Spain and 
defeated Don Rodrigo at the bat- 

(356) 



tie of Guadalete, who disappeared 
there. The Moors occupied in the 
two following years almost the 
whole of the Peninsula, and gov- 
erned under the dependence of 
the Caliphs of Damascus. 

Moorish Rulers in Spain 

Emirs dependent on the 
Caliphs of Damascus 711-715 

Independent Caliphate es- 
tablished by the Omme- 
yah family, the capital be- 
ing Cordova 755-1009 

Kings of Taifas, governors 
of the provinces which de- 
clared themselves inde- 
pendent during the last 
Caliphate, Hischen n 1009-1090 

The Almoravides from Af- 
rica established them- 
selves in the Moorish ter- 
ritory of the Peninsula.. 1090-1157 

The Almohades conquered 
the Almoravides 1157-1212 

Kings of Granada. The 
Moorish domination is 
reduced to the kingdom 

of Granada 1226-1493 

The rule of the Moors in Spain 
ends in 1492, at the conquest of 
Granada. 

Kings of Asturias, Leon^ and 
Castile 

Pelayo (the re-conquest be- 
gins) 718, D. 787 

Favila 739 

Alonso I., el Catolico 757 

Favila I. (fixes his Court at 

Oviedo) 768 

Aurelio 774 

Silo 783 

Mauregato 788 

Bermudo I., el Diacono 795 

Alonso IL, el Casto 848 

Ramiro 1 850 

Ordonol 866 



APPENDIX. 



357 



Alonso III., el Magm> 910 

Divided the kingdom of Galicia, 
Leon, and Asturias, among his 
sons, the three following kings. 

Garcia 918 

Ordono n 923 

Fruela n 934 

Ordono fixed his Court at Leon, 
and here end the named kings of 
Astnrias. 

Alouso IV., el Monge 930 

Ramiro 11 950 

Ordono HI 955 

Sancho I., el Craso 967 

Ramiro m 983 

Bermudo n 999 

Alonso v., el Noble 1028 

Bermndo IH 1037 

The territory of Castile, which 
formed a separate state, gov- 
erned by Condes, passed to Dona 
Sancha and Don Fernando I., 
who entitled themselves Kings of 
Castile and Leon. 
Fernando I. and Dona Sancha.. 1065 

Sancho 11., el Fnerte 1073 

Alfonso VI 1108 

(Conquered Toledo in 1085.) 

Dona Urraca 1126 

Alfonso Vn., el Emperador 1157 

At his death the kingdoms of 
Castile and Leon are divided 
among the six following kings : 

Sancho m. (Castilla) 1158 

Fernando 11. (Leon) 1188 

Alfonso Vni. (Castilla) 1214 

Alfonso IX. (Leon) 1230 

Enrique I. ((Jastilla) 1217 

Dona Berenguela, who abdi- 
cated the crown of Castile in 
favor of her son, Fernando III., 
who inherited also the crown of 
Leon from his father, Alfonso IX. 
Fernando III., King of Castile 

and Leon 1262 

He conquered Cordova, Jaen, 
and Seville. 

Alonso X., el Sabio. 1284 

Sancho IV., el Bravo 1295 

Fernando IV., el Emplazado . . 1312 

Alonso XI 1350 

Pedro L, el Cruel 1369 

Enrique IE., el Bastardo 1879 

Juan 1 1390 

Enrique HI., el Doliente 1407 

Juan n 1454 

Enrique IV., el Impotente 1474 

Dona Isabel, la Catolica 1504 

Fernando V. de Aragon 1516 

Dona Juanat la loca 1555 

Felipe 1., e Hermoso, first king 
of the house of Austria 1505 



Carlos v., Emperador 1558 

Felipe n 1598 

Felipe m 1621 

Felipe IV 1665 

Carlos n 1700 

Felipe V. (first king of the house 

of Bourbon) abdicated in 1724 

Luis 1 1734 

Felipe V 1746 

Fernando VI 1759 

Carlos m 1788 

Carlos rv., abdicated 1808 

Fernando VII. 1833 

Isabel n., dethroned 1868 

Gobierno Provisional 1871 

Amadeo de Saboya.. .abdicated 1873 

Spanish Republic , 1874 

Alfonso XII died 1886 



Kings of Navarre. 

The inhabitants of Navarre be- 
gan the re-conquest from the 
middle of the 8th century. Their 
rulers were called condes, or 
kings, until Sancho Abarca wid- 
ened the territory; from that 
time they are always called kings 
of Navarre. 

Sancho Abarca 980-994 

Garcia m 1000 

Sancho III., el Mayor 1088 

Garcia IV 1057 

Sancho IV 1076 

Sancho Ramirez V 1092 

This king, and the two that fol- 
lowed, were likewise kings of 
Aragon. 

Pedro I ■ 1106 

Alfonso, el Batallador. 1134 

Garcia Ramirez IV 1150 

Sancho VL, el Sabio 1194 

Sancho VH., el Fuerte 1234 

Here begin the kings of the 
House of Champagne. 

Teobaldo 1 1253 

Teobaldo U 1270 

Enrique 1 1273 

Juana I... 1304 

On her marriage with Philip le 
Bel, Navarre passed to the house 
of Franpe. 

Luis Hufm 1316 

Felipe le Long 1320 

Carlos I. de Navarra, FV. 

de Francia 1329 

Juana II 1343 

Carlos n. d'Evreux 1387 

Carlos III 1425 

Dona Blanca y Juan 1 1479 

Francisco Febo 1483 

Catalina 1512 



358 



APPENDIX. 



Fernando V. of Navarre took 
possession in 1513 of Navarre, 
and it was then incorporated with 
Castile. 



Kings of Aragon. 

Aragon belonged to the king- 
dom of Navarre until Sancho ru. 
gave it to his son Ramiro. 

Ramiro 1 1035, D. 1063 

Sancho 1 1094 

Pedro 1 1104 

Alfonso I., el Batallador.. 1134 

Ramiro II., el Monge 1137 

Aragon and Catalnna are united. 

Petronila 1162 

Alfonso II 1196 

Pedro II 1213 

Jaime L, el Conquistador 1276 

Pedro III 1285 

Sicily is united to Aragon. 

Alfonso ni 1291 

Jaime II 1327 

Alfonso rV 1336 

Pedro IV 1387 

Juan 1 1395 

Martin 1410 



Fernando, el de Antequera 141d 

Alfonso V 1458 

Juan II 1479 

Fernando el Catolico. 

Aragon passes to the crown of 
Castile. 

Counts of Barcelona, 

In the 8th and 9th centuries 
Cataluna belonged to Charle- 
magne and his successors. Wil- 
fred© viras the first independent 
Conde. 

Wilfredo el Belloso 864-898 

Borrell I. 912 

Suniario 917 

Borrell II. and his brother Mlron 993 

Ramon Borrell 1018 

Ramon Berenguer 1 1025 

Ramon Berenguer II 1077 

Berenguer and Ramon Beren- 
guer ni 1113 

Ramon Berenguer IV 1131 

Ramon Berenguer V. married 
Dona Petronila de Aragon, and 
this kingdom was incorporated 
with the Condado de Cataluna. 



NO. n 

Contemporary Sovereigns 

The periods have been selected during which leading events in Spanish 
history have occurred. 



A.D. 

800 
877 
996 

1075 

1155 

1245 
1345 

1360 
1485 
1515 
1550 
1560 
1644 
1705 
1760 
1808 

1840 

1877 
1886 

1886 



Spain. 
Alonso II. el Casto 
Alonso in. el Magno 
Ranniro III. 

Sancho II. 

Alfonso VII. 

San Fernando 
Alfonso XI. 
Pedro el Cruel 
Isabel la Catolica 
Fernando de Aragon 
Carlos V. 
Felipe 11. 
Felipe IV. 
Felipe V. 
Carlos in. 
Fernando VII. 

Isabel II. 

Alfonso XII. 
Cristina, queen- 
regent 
Alfonso XIIL 



England. 
Egbert 
Alfred 
Ethelred II. 
William the 

Conqueror 

Henry 11. 

Henry IH. 
Edward IH. 
Edward IH. 
Henry VII. 
Henry VIII. 
Edward VI. 
Elizabeth 
Charles I. 
Anne 

Greorge IH. 
George III. 



• Victoria 



France. 
Charlemagne 
Louis II. 
Hugh Capet 

Philip I. 

Louis VII. 

St. Louis 
Philip VL 
John II. 
Charles VIIL 
Francis I. 
Henry II. 
Charles IX. 
Louis XIV. 
Louis XIV. 
Louis XV. 
Napoleon I. 
Louis Philippe I 
Napoleon III. ) 
French Republic 



J ,L. 



Rome. 
Leo IIL 
John Vn. 
Gregory V. 

Gregory VII. 

i Adrian IV. 

( Breakspeare 
Innocent IV. 
Benedict VL 
Innocent VI. 
Innocent VIIL 
LeoX. 
Paul in. 
Pius IV. 
Innocent X. 
Clement XI. 
Clement Xm. 
Pius VII. 

( Gregory XVI 

I and Pius IX. 
Leo xm. 



^' 



/ 



y 



^ 



^ 










^^ 



,%>■ ... % '-•' *° V • 





vV , t / » '^ >«^ "^^^ ' . • • 4U o 





*''JJ* o. 



C" * 








>! 







^o ^C Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 

• rj Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 

"^ Treatment Date: 



. -^^ ^-^ /j;^^ PreservationTechnologies 



A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Crantjerry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 






. ^o 








j^ 
















i- .' 





1? ^ 







'sP<b- 



V-^' 

s^. 




'J>c,- 







<r. *'T: 



^' 



,0 







Ho^ 






v^\.* 






























N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 



-. /.^Sl^'. ^^^^^/ ,^^, ^^^^^. /. 



.^^^ 













